DeSantis, Downing, and Pace elected to ALA Executive Board

For Immediate Release
Wed, 01/27/2016

Contact:

JoAnne Kempf

Director, Office of ALA Governance

Office of ALA Governance

jkempf@ala.org

(CHICAGO)  John C. DeSantis, Karen E. Downing, and Andrew K. Pace have been elected to serve on the American Library Association (ALA) Executive Board. The new board members were elected by the ALA Council in a vote taken at the 2016 ALA Midwinter Meeting held January 8-12 in Boston. Downing and Pace will each serve three-year terms beginning in July 2016 and concluding in June 2019. DeSantis was elected to complete the unexpired term of Gail Schlachter who passed away in April, 2015. His term begins immediately and will conclude in June 2017.

DeSantis is a cataloging and metadata services librarian as well as bibliographer for Russian, theater and film studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He has served on ALA Council since 2004.  He has served on numerous ALA committees and is an active member of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), the Social Responsibility Round Table (SRRT), the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT), and the Video Round Table. He also serves on committees of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and OCLC. DeSantis holds a BA in Russian, an M.A. in Slavic Languages, an A.B.D. in Slavic Languages, and an M.L.S., all from the University of Toronto.

Downing, head of social sciences at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Hatcher Library, served on ALA Council from 1998-2002 and again from 2010 to the present.  She has served on numerous committees within ALA and ACRL, as well as within IFLA, the Black Caucus of the ALA (BCALA), and the Michigan Library Association. She is the recipient of the 2010 ALA Library of the Future Award and the 2009 ALA Equality Award. Downing holds a BA in History of Arts, an MILS, and a PhD in Education, all from the University of Michigan.

Pace is the executive director of management services at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio, and has served on ALA Council since 2011.  He has served on numerous committees within ALA and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) and served as the 2008-2009 LITA president.  He is also an active member of ALCTS, ACRL, the Public Library Association (PLA), the Library, Leadership, and Management Association (LLAMA), and the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. Pace holds a BA in in Rhetoric & Communication Studies from the University of Virginia, and an MSLS from the Catholic University of America.

ACRL, ALCTS, LITA, LLAMA, and PLA are divisions of the ALA.  

The ALA Executive Board manages the affairs of the Association. It is composed of the president, president-elect, immediate past president, treasurer, executive director and eight members elected by Council from among the members of that body. For more information on the Executive Board, please visit http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/officers.