Elisandro (Alex) Cabada elected vice-president/president-elect

CHICAGO ⎯ Elisandro (Alex) Cabada, Assistant Professor, Emerging Technologies and Immersive Scholarship Librarian, and Director of the Grainger IDEA Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been elected ACRL Vice-President/President-Elect. Cabada will become president-elect in July 2023 and assume the presidency in July 2024 for a one-year term.

Tarida Anantachai, Director, Inclusion & Talent Management at the North Carolina State University Libraries, has been elected to the ACRL Board of Directors as Director-at-Large.

Amy Dye-Reeves, Associate Education and History Librarian at Texas Tech University, has been elected to the ACRL Board of Directors as Director-at-Large.

“I feel privileged to serve as ACRL Vice-President/President-Elect as we move into a new era of Open Scholarship with an increasing emphasis on the application of emerging technologies, including Generative AI,” Cabada said. “While there are many challenges ahead for us, there are also opportunities to advocate for the value of Open Access, for responsible and ethical use of technology, and for a purposeful understanding of how this will impact our underserved and marginalized communities. With this understanding, we can come together to build on the meaningful work needed to address the inequities of the digital and technological divide in our society.”

During his eight years of ACRL membership, Cabada has held various positions with the ACRL Digital Scholarship Section Executive Committee (DSS), including past-chair (2022-2023), chair (2021-2022), vice-chair (2020-2021) and member-at-large, (2018-2020). He has also served as a member of the ACRL DSS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee (2017-2019).

“It is my distinct pleasure to congratulate Alex Cabada for his election and to welcome him to the ACRL Board of Directors,” said ACRL Executive Director Robert Jay Malone. “Alex’s deep involvement with digital scholarship, especially his good work with ACRL’s Digital Scholarship Section, will help us move more assuredly into the expanding digital landscape. Likewise, his involvement in ACRL’s equity, diversity and inclusion efforts will aid our efforts in making ACRL more equitable, more diverse, and more inclusive. I am grateful for his willingness to help ACRL succeed.” 

Cabada’s experience with ALA includes being member (2018-2019) and chair (2019-2020) of the ALA Training, Orientation, and Leadership Development (TOLD) Committee (2019-2020). He has also served as a member of the ALA Spectrum Advisory Committee (2018-2020), a member of the ALA LITA Assessment and Research Committee (2017-2019) and a member of the ALA LLAMA Leadership Development Committee (2016-2018).

Notable accomplishments for Cabada include being selected as a Library Journal Movers and Shakers: Innovators (2022); receiving the ALA RUSA ETS Best Emerging Technology Application Award (2021); being selected to participate in the ALA Leadership Institute program, Oak Brook, IL (2019); and invited to provide keynote convocation speech at the School of Information Sciences December 2018 Graduation Ceremony, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2018). 

Cabada was named a member of Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society for LIS (2018), was a ILA Sylvia Murphy Williams Scholar (2016) and ALA Spectrum Scholar (2016-2017), received the ALA IFLA-IMLS Fellowship (2016) and was a ARL Kaleidoscope Program Scholar (2015-2017). Cabada is a current Co-PI on the $2.08 million Department of Education grant to the University of Illinois System/CARLI (Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois) for Illinois SCOERs (Support for Creation of Open Educational Resources). 

His publications include co-authoring "Constructing a Campus-Wide Infrastructure for Virtual Reality," College & Undergraduate Libraries (2021). His presentations include “Survey of Information Professionals on the Preparedness of STEM Graduates Entering the Workforce," a poster co-presented at the 2018 STS Research Forum of the ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, and "The CARE (Center for Academic Resources in Engineering) Program at Illinois,” a paper co-presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition in Indianapolis, Indiana.

For full 2023 ACRL election results, visit the election section of the ACRL website.

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The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) is the higher education association for academic libraries and library workers. Representing more than 8,000 individuals and libraries, ACRL (a division of the American Library Association) develops programs, products, and services to help those working in academic and research libraries learn, innovate, and lead within the academic community. Founded in 1940, ACRL is committed to advancing learning, transforming scholarship, and creating diverse and inclusive communities. Find ACRL on the web, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.