Contact: Eileen Hardy

RUSA Marketing Specialist 
312-280-4398

ehardy@ala.org

For Immediate Release

May 11, 2007

Wyatt elected RUSA president for 2008-2009

CHICAGO—Neal Wyatt has been elected president of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), for the 2008-2009 term.

Wyatt will become RUSA president-elect in July 2007 and will assume the RUSA presidency in July 2008.  William McHugh, reference collection management librarian, Northwestern University Library, Evanston (Ill.), ran against Wyatt.

“I am honored to be elected part of the leadership team of RUSA. It is an exciting time to be a librarian and RUSA’s unique point of view on our profession makes it an exciting time to be part of RUSA as well,” said Wyatt. “The division’s many interests – from readers’ advisory service to virtual reference – tap into the vital conversation between librarian and patron. Our unique and open framework makes involvement in the division personally and professionally rewarding. I look forward to deepening both the conversation and the involvement during my term.”

Wyatt is a collection development manager for Chesterfield County Public Library, Chesterfield, (Va.) and teaches the RUSA Readers’ Advisory 101 online continuing education course.  She holds a master’s degree in library science from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. and a master’s degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond.

As an active RUSA member, Wyatt has served as chair of the RUSA Awards Committee, as the division councilor to ALA Council, and as chair of the RUSA Access to Information Committee. She also has served on the Booklist Advisory Board and is a member of the ALA Editions Advisory Board. Wyatt has been instrumental in the development of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES), creating the Awards Recognition Reception, the Notable Books Publicity Subcommittee, and a new committee to select the best adult genre books published each year. She helped to establish the Sophie Brody Medal, has served as chair of CODES, chair of The Notable Book Council, and has helped to manage and arrange the Literary Tastes: Notable Books Breakfast for many years.

Wyatt is the author of “The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction” to be released in June from ALA Editions. She is the editor of  "The Alert Collector" column for Reference & User Services Quarterly and the RUSQ Online Companion (http://www.rusq.org/), is the complier of Library Journal’s “Wyatt’s World,” and is the editor of Library Journal’s "Reader's Shelf," column (http://www.libraryjournal.com/). She reviews for Booklist and is a contributor to NoveList.

Wyatt was selected as one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers in 2005 and received the 2001 Virginia Library Association/SIRS Intellectual Freedom Award.

The Reference and User Services Association, the leading association for reference and user services professionals, is responsible for stimulating and supporting excellence in the delivery of general library services and materials to adults, and the provision of reference and information services, collection development, and resource sharing for all ages, in every type of library.