Dowling is LITA vice-president/president-elect; four new board members elected

CHICAGO — Thomas P. Dowling is the newly elected vice-president/president-elect of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). Dowling is director of technologies at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. He served on the LITA Board of Directors, 2000-2002, and, currently serves as chair of the LITA Publications Committee, 2012-2014. Thomas Dowling’s term, and that of the other newly elected LITA Board members, will begin at the conclusion of the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas in July, 2014.

Dowling said, “I have benefited from LITA's programs and gatherings for 25 years. Back when it was a big win to get your PC to talk to a file server down the hall, LITA gave me my first exposure to the Internet. Similar programs, cutting edge at their time, introduced me to the Web, usability, open source, and open access. The list goes on, and each time, LITA has made us early adopters while focusing on how the technology serves library users.

I want the organization to draw strength and good ideas from the members, and for the members to find in the organization a professional home that is (re) energized, adaptive, and open. I want to face LITA's financial challenges as an opportunity to reinvent and reimagine what we do, and why. I want the LITA word cloud to feature both "Insanely Cool" and "Incredibly Useful."

This year there are four newly elected directors-at-large. Aimee Fifarek, IT and digital initiatives deputy director at the Phoenix Public Library, Phoenix, has been elected to a one-year term. Bohyun Kim, Jenny Emanuel Taylor and Ranti Junus have been elected to three-year terms. Kim is associate director of library applications and knowledge systems at the University of Maryland Human Services and Health Sciences Library in Baltimore. Taylor is digital services and reference librarian at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. Junus is systems librarian at the Michigan State University Libraries in East Lansing, Mich.

About LITA

LITA is the leading organization reaching out across types of libraries to provide education and services for a broad membership including systems librarians, library administrators, library schools, vendors and many others interested in leading edge technology and applications for librarians and for information providers. For more information about LITA go to www.lita.org, or contact the LITA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4268; or e-mail, lita@ala.org