Camila Alire Elected 2009–10 ALA President

Lynn Blumenstein & Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 5/2/2008

• Winner has background in academic libraries
• Stripling, Stoffle, Kunzel lead race for Council
• Larger turnout, thanks to electronic voting

In an election marked by a growing number of participants, Camila Alire (l.), dean emeritus of the libraries of both the University of New Mexico and Colorado State University, won election as 2009–10 American Library Association (ALA) president with 8,956 votes, or 55.8% of the total. J. Linda Williams, coordinator of library media services for Anne Arundel County public schools in Annapolis, MD, got.7102 votes. Alire will become president-elect at the American Library Association annual conference next month, and will take the top spot the following year. In an interview in LJ in April, Alire stressed advocacy training for librarians "back home," among other things she supports.

ALA members also elected 34 Councilors-at-Large who will serve from 2008-2011 and one who will serve from 2008-2009. The winners are: Nancy H. Allen, Monika J. Antonelli, Kathleen E. Bethel, Mary Biblo, Christopher F. Bowen, Diedre (Dee) Conkling, Trevor A. Dawes, Aaron W. Dobbs, Linda Friel, Carrie Gardner, Barbara A. Genco, Susan F. Gregory, Dolores (Dee) Gwaltney, Marilyn L. Hinshaw, Carol Ann Hughes, Ling Hwey Jeng, Wei Jeng-Chu, Margaret L. Kirkpatrick, Bonnie L. Kunzel, Stephen L. Matthews, Toni Negro, June A. Pinnell-Stephens, Linda Shippert, Sally Decker Smith, Carla J. Stoffle, Barbara Stripling, Julie Su, Eric D. Suess, John F. Szabo, Theresa A. Tobin, Linda J. Underwood, Lisa Von Drasek, Ann Carlson Weeks, and Courtney L. Young. 

The top vote-getters were Stripling, director of library services for the New York City Department of Education; Stoffle, dean, University of Arizona Library; and Kunzel, a youth services and adolescent literacy consultant, Germantown, TN. Dobbs will serve only one year.

Of the 59,141 members eligible to vote, 17,089 cast ballots (28.9 percent), including 15,655 electronic (32.52 percent) and 1,434 paper (13.04 percent). That's up from last year when, of 55,775 eligible members, 15,031 voted (26.95 percent), breaking down to 13,373 electronic (30.22 percent) and 1,658 paper ballots (14.39 percent). ALA's Mary Ghikas said that before electronic voting began in 2004, only 9,844 members voted in the 2003 election, a mere 17.7 percent of eligible voters. This year's turnout was the highest since 1991, when 28 percent of membership cast ballots. Ghikas reported that several elections between 1970 (39 percent) and 1990 brought out more than 30 percent of members.