Freedom to Read Foundation announces 2010 Board of Trustees election winners

CHICAGO - The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2010 Board of Trustees election, held in April. Five trustees were elected to two-year terms, beginning in June: Carol Brey-Casiano, Mary Minow, James G. Neal, Kent Oliver and Judith Platt. Oliver was elected to his second consecutive term; Neal and Platt were re-elected after a mandatory period off the board and Brey-Casiano and Minow are newly elected (Brey-Casiano served two years on the board in an ex-officio capacity as ALA President). Also joining the 2010–2011 board will be incoming ALA President Elect Molly Raphael and incoming ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair Julius Jefferson, both of whom will serve on the board in ex-officio capacities.

These trustees will join Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, Jonathan Bloom, Robert P. Doyle, Susan Hildreth, Christine Jenkins and Candace D. Morgan, who are elected board members; and incoming ALA President Roberta Stevens and Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels, who are ex-officio board members. Barbara M. Jones is the FTRF secretary and executive director.

Biographical information on the election winners follows:

Carol Brey-Casiano (El Paso, Texas) is director of libraries at the El Paso, Texas, Public Library. She served as president of the American Library Association in 2004–2005 and currently chairs ALA’s Committee on Library Advocacy. She is an active member of REFORMA—the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos & the Spanish Speaking—and the Texas Library Association.

Mary Minow (Cupertino, Calif.) is a library law consultant specializing in free speech, privacy and copyright. She chairs the California Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and is on the Electronic Privacy Information Center board. In April she was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board.

James G. Neal (New York) is the vice president for information services and university librarian at Columbia University. He has served on the board of the Association of Research Libraries and was just elected treasurer of the American Library Association.

Kenton Oliver (Canton, Ohio) is the executive director of the Stark County, Ohio, District Library and current president of the Freedom to Read Foundation. Oliver served two terms as chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and has served on the Executive Board of ALA.

Judith Platt (Washington, D.C.) is director, Freedom to Read & Communications and Public Affairs, at the Association of American Publishers (AAP). As such, she is responsible for articulating AAP’s position on important free speech issues as laid down in the Freedom to Read Statement more than 50 years ago. She has previously served two terms as FTRF president.

The Freedom to Read Foundation was founded in 1969 to promote and defend the right of individuals to freely express ideas and to access information in libraries and elsewhere. FTRF fulfills its mission through the disbursement of grants to individuals and groups, primarily for the purpose of aiding them in litigation, and through direct participation in litigation dealing with freedom of speech and of the press. For more information, visit www.ftrf.org.