The American Library Association (ALA), founded in 1876 and chartered in 1879, is the largest professional organization for librarians in the United States. The headquarters of the American Library Association is in Chicago, Illinois.
Role and responsibilities
Since 1889, the President of the ALA serves a term of one year, and during each election (held every two years), the president's immediate successor is also elected, serving as Vice President until the start of their own term. The Vice President appoints members of committees on recommendation of the presidents-elect of the divisions, subject to approval from the Board.
In practice, despite being the legal head of the Association, the President of the ALA is mostly a figurehead, with most of their unique duties revolving around representing/acting as spokesperson for the Association to the public and other organizations, maintaining unity and values in the organization, protecting the Executive Director from inappropriate interference by members, and presiding at Board and Council Meetings, although they can appoint interim members of committees in the case of a vacancy until a successor is determined. The Executive Board administers established policies and programs and manages overall affairs of the organization (such as financial and progress reports) while giving policy recommendations to the Council, while the Executive Director (elected at the pleasure of the Board) manages day-to-day operations and the headquarters. The President, Vice President, immediate past President, Treasurer, and Executive Director are all members of the Executive Board (along with other members selected by the council for three-year terms), with the President acting as Chairperson. The governing body is the Council, which determines the policies of the Association, and to which all American Library Association units are responsible. Members of the Board are also ex-officio members of the Council, although the Executive Director cannot vote, and the President can only vote in case of a tie.[1][2]
Developed the Cutter Expansive Classification system which became the basis for the top categories of the Library of Congress Classification; Director of the Boston Athenaeum,1869-1892.[6]
Councilor 1883–1891, vice president 1890–1891. Resigned following his arrest for embezzling from the Milwaukee Public Library and the executive board voted Fletcher the new president, retroactive to the beginning of the term. To this day, Linderfelt is absent from official ALA lists of its past presidents.[9][10]
Vice-president Hayes (son of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes) assumed the office of Acting President upon the death of Winsor without election by the executive board, despite the fact that it was unclear whether or not the ALA constitution allowed this. His successor, Putnam, was elected president following a special election.[14]
She was the ALA's first African-American president, serving as its acting president from April 11 to July 22 in 1976 and then its president from July 22, 1976 to 1977.[45]
Established "Emerging Leaders Program" at the American Library Association.[54] Appointed interim Executive Director of the American Library Association in 2023.[55]
^"ALA Bylaws". About ALA. 2010-11-24. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
^Cutler, Wayne and Michael H Harris. 1980. Justin Winsor Scholar-Librarian. Littleton Colo: Libraries Unlimited.
^Williamson, William Landram. 1963. William Frederick Poole and the Modern Library Movement. New York: Columbia University Press.
^Miksa, Francis L 1977. Charles Ammi Cutter Library Systematizer. Littleton Colo: Libraries Unlimited.
^Boston Athenaeum. The Athenaeum Centenary; the Influence and History of the Boston Athenaeum from 1807 to 1907 with a Record of Its Officers and Benefactors and a Complete List of Proprietors. Boston: Gregg Press; 1972.
^Wiegand, Wayne A. (1996). Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey. Chicago: American Library Association.
^Green, Samuel Swett. “Personal Relations Between Librarians and Readers”. Library Journal, v. 1 (October 1876): 74-81.
^Wiegand, Wayne A. (April 1977). "The Wayward Bookman: The Decline, Fall, and Historical Obliteration of an ALA President (Part II)". American Libraries. 8 (4): 197–200. JSTOR25621033.
^Young, Betty (October 1975). "Josephus Nelson Larned and the Public Library Movement". The Journal of Library History. 10 (4): 323–340.
^Henry Munson Utley. Library Journal. 42 (1): 190. March 1917.
^Chapman, Carleton (1994). Order out of chaos : John Shaw Billings and America's coming of age. Boston: Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.
^Hosmer, James K. 1913. The American Civil War. New York: Harper & Bros.
^Branscomb, Lewis Capers (1 January 1993). Ernest Cushing Richardson: Research Librarian, Scholar, Theologian, 1860-1939. Scarecrow Press.
^Rooney, Paul M. (1978). "Walter Lewis Brown," pp. 65-66. In Dictionary of American Library Biography, eds. Bobinski. George S.; Jesse Hauk Shera and Bohdan S Wynar. 1978. Littleton Colo: Libraries Unlimited.
^Sparks, C. G. (1993). Doyen of Librarians A Biography of William Warner Bishop. Metuchen, N.J., & London: The Scarecrow Press.
^Bishop, William Warner. “Azariah Root Smith.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 22, no. 1 (1928): 66–68.
^Eaton, G. (2011). The Education of Alice M. Jordan and the Origins of the Boston Public Library Training School. Libraries & the Cultural Record, 46(1), 26–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23053619
^Dain, P (1977). "Harry M. Lydenberg and American library resources: a study in modern library leadership". Library Quarterly. 47 (4): 451–469.
^University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Jesse Hauk Shera," 'The Spirit Giveth Life:' "Louis Round Wilson and Chicago's Graduate Library School." The Journal of Library History 14 (winter 1975): 77-83.
^Shaw, R. R. 1946. “Harrison Warwick Craver.” College & Research Libraries 7 (April): 347–48.
^"Dawson, Alma, "Awards," pp. 55-82 in Dawson, Alma, Florence M Jumonville, and Louisiana Library Association. 2003. A History of the Louisiana Library Association, 1925-2000. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana Library Association.
^Espenshade, E. B. (1947). Essays in honor of Charles Harvey Brown. College & Research Libraries, 8, 293–384.
^Manning MG. When Books Went to War : The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2014.
^Boaz, Martha (1961) Fervent and Full of Gifts: The Life of Althea Warren (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1961).
^Robbins, Louise S. 1993. “Segregating Propaganda in American Libraries: Ralph Ulveling Confronts the Intellectual Freedom Committee.” The Library Quarterly 143–65.
^Mallory, Mary (1995). “The Rare Vision of Mary Utopia Rothrock: Organizing Regional Library Services in the Tennessee Valley.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 65, no. 1 (1995): 62–88.
^Johnson, Margaret L. (September 1964). "Flora Belle Ludington: A Biography and Bibliography". College and Research Libraries. 25 (5): 375–379.
^VOSPER, R. G. (1964). ALA’s president-elect. Wilson Library Bulletin, 39, 25–26.
^Cragin, Melissa H (Spring 2004). "Foster Mohrhardt: connecting the traditional world of libraries and the emerging world of information science." Library Trends. 52 (4): 833–852.
^Delmus Eugene Williams. 1994. For the Good of the Order: Essays in Honor of Edward G. Holley. Greenwich Conn: Jai Press.
^Martin, Allie Beth. (1972). A Strategy for Public Library Change (Chicago: American Library Association, 1972).
^Turock, Betty J. (1996). Envisioning a Nation Connected : Librarians Define the Public Interest in the Information Superhighway. Chicago: American Library Association.
^Gorman, M. (2000).Our Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Century. ALA Editions.
^Burger, Leslie. 2006. “Transforming Leadership.” American Libraries 37 (2): 3.