Turock Spectrum Scholarship

Since its founding, Dr. Betty J. Turock and her family have provided several gifts to the Spectrum Scholarship program, including the creation of the Betty J. Turock Spectrum Scholarship in 2001. In 2010, her family contributed $100,000 to the successful Spectrum Presidential Fundraising Initiative which raised over $1.23 million for the Spectrum endowment. Each year a recipient of Spectrum is designated as a Turock Scholar to honor the family's generous support of the Spectrum Scholarship Program.

"Dr. Turock is an icon in the library profession and I am honored that I was chosen as her scholar. The scholarship money helped me complete my MLIS, which in turn enabled me to become a librarian at Ramapo College. My successes in the library field would not have been possible without the Turock family's support, and I thank her wholeheartedly for it!" - Madel Tisi "Just learning about the Spectrum Scholarship gave me a sense that diversity was truly appreciated in the profession! I will always be grateful for the honor of being a Turock Scholar. Not only did it help me financially, but Dr. Turock provided invaluable guidance and support when I needed it the most." - Claudia Flores

About Dr. Turock

Dr. Betty J. Turock is Professor and Associate Dean Emerita at Rutgers University, where for 22 years she was a member of the faculty of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies. For eight years she was Director of the master’s program and Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science. Turock is a Past President (1995-1996) of the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world. As President she traveled over 300,000 miles and testified on more than a dozen occasions before the Congress and the Federal Commission on Communications (FCC) to focus the interest of the people of the United States on Equity on the Information Superhighway, just and equitable access to electronic information for all people of our nation and the nations of the world.

Dr. Turock writes, "The proudest moments of my presidency came when I had the opportunity to initiate the Spectrum Scholarship Program. Then the demographic ballasts of our country were shifting and an urgent need existed for greater diversity in the professional face of our libraries. The most significant barrier to earning a library degree was lack of financial support. ALA’s answer was Spectrum, which funds emerging majorities and primes them for leadership. Many of the librarians it has educated are now Association leaders, library directors and tenured faculty members in library education programs. While fundraising has been continuous, enough money never exists to cover everyone who applies. We are always looking for more people to become part of Spectrum’s legacy as committed advocates and donors who want to make a lasting impact on its growth and development."

Throughout her years of service to ALA and its various units, Turock has been committed to broadening the association's diversity efforts. She served on the ALA Minority Concerns and Cultural Diversity Committee and chaired ALA President-elect Sarah Long's Special Advisory Committee on the Spectrum Campaign, which began raising funds for the Spectrum Scholarship.

Turock received the ALA Jesse Shera Award for Outstanding Research in 1989 and is the recipient of the 1994 Distinguished Alumna Award from Rutgers, the 1995 New Jersey Library Leadership Award, the 1997 Rutgers Presidential Award for Distinguished Public Service, and the 1998 ALA Equality Award. In 2000 she was honored by ALA as one of the Extraordinary Library Advocates of the Twentieth Century. At the 2006 ALA annual conference she received the Lippincott Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Association for distinguished service to the profession of library and information science. In 2011 she was named Distinguished Alumna for the Social Sciences by the Rutgers Graduate School. In 2012 ALA conferred on Turock the highest honor the association bestows, Honorary Membership, "for contributions so outstanding that they are of lasting importance to the advancement of the field of library and information science."