Three members elected to ALA Executive Board
Contact: Elizabeth Dreazen
312-280-3023
ALA News Release
For Immediate Release
March 2001
Three members elected to ALA Executive Board
Kenton L. "Kent" Oliver, Barbara K. Stripling and Patricia M. "Patty" Wong have been elected to serve on the American Library Association (ALA) Executive Board.
Oliver and Wong will each serve three-year terms beginning in June 2001 and concluding in June 2004. Stripling was elected to complete the unexpired term of Board member Liz Bishoff, who was elected ALA Treasurer. Stripling took her seat on the Board upon election in January 2001 and will serve through June 2002. The new Board members were elected by the ALA Council at the recent ALA Midwinter Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Oliver has served as branch services manager at the Johnson County Library in Shawnee Mission, Kan., since 1995. From 1988-1995, Oliver was director of the Olathe (Kan.) Public Library. A native Kansan, Oliver has worked in public libraries in Kansas and Missouri and served as president of both the Kansas and Missouri Library Associations.
Oliver has been an active member of the ALA throughout his library career. He has served on numerous committees and task forces within the ALA and two of its divisions, the Public Library Association (PLA) and the Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA). In 1991, Oliver was an alternate delegate in attendance at the White House Conference on Library and Information Services. Oliver received a master's in library science from Emporia State University.
Stripling is director of instructional services for the Fayetteville (Ark.) Public Schools. She has served on a number of committees within ALA and has been an active member of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of ALA. Stripling served as AASL president in 1996-1997 and as co-editor of the AASL magazine
School Library Media Quarterly from 1988-1991. Stripling also held several committee positions in the Arkansas Library Association. She was co-editor of its publication,
Arkansas Libraries, from 1985-1987.
Stripling is the author of numerous publications, including
Brainstorms and Blueprints: Teaching Library Research as a Thinking Process (co-authored with Judy M. Pitts) and
Libraries for the National Education Goals. In 1999, she edited
Learning and Libraries in an Information Age: Principles and Practice. She is the 1989 recipient of the Retta Patrick Award, given by the Arkansas Library Association to the outstanding school library media specialist of the year and was named Arkansas School Library Media Specialist of the Year in 1990. Stripling received her master's of arts in communication from the University of Colorado and a master's of education in instructional resources from the University of Arkansas.
Wong recently assumed the position of deputy director of the Stockton-San Joaquin County (Calif.) Public Library. She previously served as library coordinator for children's services for the Oakland (Calif.) Public Library, where she was responsible for children's and teen programming and services. Under her direction, the Oakland Public Library was one of nine libraries in the United States to receive a DeWitt Wallace - Reader's Digest Fund "Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development," initiative grant. Wong began her library career as a children's librarian at the Oakland Public Library 16 years ago. She also held positions at Oakland's Latin American Library and at the Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library.
Wong is an active member of the Chinese-American Librarians Association and the immediate past president of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association. She is a contributing member of REFORMA (National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking) and the Black Caucus of the ALA, and is a recipient of the Louise Giles Minority Scholarship and Transition into Management training. Wong received a master's in library and information studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
The ALA's Executive Board manages the affairs of the association. It is composed of the president, president-elect, immediate past president, treasurer, executive director and eight members elected by Council from among the members of that body.
