PLA President-elect to focus on moving association forward

Contact: Kathleen Hughes, PLA Communications Manager


312-280-4028

For Immediate Release


July 18, 2003

PLA President-elect to focus on moving association forward

Clara Nalli Bohrer, director of the West Bloomfield Township (Michigan) Public Library, is the new president-elect of the Public Library Association (PLA).
Her term began after the 2003 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Toronto.

Bohrer will focus on leading the association forward in completing strategic plan initiatives - particularly in the areas of training and knowledge transfer, emergent literacy, and recruitment - during her term as president.

“I look forward to my term as PLA president, and all of the challenges and opportunities that it presents, in addition I hope to effect an increase in continuing education opportunities for our members on a regional basis and/or an electronic basis,” said Bohrer.

Bohrer has been an active ALA member since 1980, and has served on the board of directors for the PLA and the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). She currently serves as the chair of the PLA 2004 National Conference Committee, to be held in Seattle, February 24-28, 2004.

In addition, she has chaired a number of committees for ALA, PLA and ALSC. These include the ALA Standards Committee, 1989-91; the PLA President's Events Committee, which she chaired from 1997-99; the 1998 PLA National Conference Program Committee; the PLA Conference Program Coordinating Committee, 1994-97; the PLA/ALSC Committee on Output Measures for Children's Services, 1989-92; and the PLA Services to Children Committee, 1985-88. Bohrer has also served as a member of several other association committees.

Along with her ALA responsibilities, Bohrer is active in a number of other professional groups, including the Urban Libraries Council. She served on the board of directors and as president of the Michigan Library Association, and on the board of directors for the Greater West Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce.
She is currently president-elect of the West Bloomfield Chapter of Optimist International.

Bohrer also is an experienced speaker and workshop organizer. In the past, she has planned and coordinated programming (as program chairperson) for the 1998 PLA National Conference, as well as seminars for the “Building” workshops held during PLA’s Spring Symposiums in 1999 and in 2001.
Most recently, Bohrer was a speaker on “Creating an Environment that Promotes Emergent Literacy” at the “Building the Perfect Library workshop,” which was one of the five sessions offered during PLA’s 2003 Spring Symposium, held March 6-8, 2003, in Chicago.

Bohrer received a B.A. in education from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1973, an M.S.L.S. from Wayne State University in 1976, and a master of arts in education from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in 1984.
PLA and ALSC are divisions of ALA. For more information, please phone 1-800-545-2433, ext. 5PLA.