Reception at Los Angeles Public Library raises funds for Spectrum Presidential Initiative

CHICAGO — Margaret Donnellan Todd, county librarian, County of Los Angeles Public Library; Gary E. Strong, university librarian, UCLA; Catherin Quinlan, dean, USC Libraries; and Martin J. Gómez, city librarian, Los Angeles Public Library, raised more than $3,000 for the Spectrum Scholarship Program at a reception at the Richard J. Riordan Central Library.

ALA President Molly Raphael, Immediate Past President Roberta Stevens, ALA President-elect Maureen Sullivan and ALA Past President Dr. Betty J. Turock, chair of the initiative, continue the Spectrum Presidential Initiative as a special campaign to raise $1 million for the Spectrum Scholarship Program. Through this initiative, ALA aims to meet the critical needs of supporting master’s-level scholarships, providing two $25,000 doctoral scholarships, increasing the Spectrum Endowment to ensure the program’s future and developing special programs for recruitment and career development.

Martín J. Gómez, city librarian, Los Angeles Public Library, said of the event, “As a member of the ALA Executive Board in the '90’s I was an early supporter of Spectrum Scholarship Program. I couldn’t think of a more worthy cause to support! I am proud that my colleagues at the Los Angeles County Library, USC and UCLA agreed to co-sponsor this event!”

The Spectrum Scholarship Program is ALA’s national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of underrepresentation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession, while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future. Since its founding, Spectrum has provided more than 700 scholarships to qualified applicants enrolled in an ALA-accredited graduate program in library and information studies or an ALA-recognized NCATE School Library program. To learn more about the Spectrum Scholarship Program, visit www.ala.org/spectrum.

For more information about the Spectrum Presidential Initiative or to make an online donation, visit http://spectrum.ala.org. To learn more, get involved, or to make a pledge to the Spectrum Presidential Initiative, contact Miguel A. Figueroa, Director, Office for Diversity & Spectrum at mfigueroa@ala.org, or Kim Olsen-Clark, Director, Development Office at kolsen-clark@ala.org.