Michael Gorman inaugurated 2005 ALA president
Contact: Larra Clark
ALA Media Relations Manager
312-280-5043
For Immediate Release
June 29, 2005
Michael Gorman inaugurated 2005 ALA president
(CHICAGO) Today Michael Gorman, dean of Library Services at the Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno, began his term as 2005-2006 president of the American Library Association (ALA).
In this role, Gorman will be the chief elected officer for the oldest and largest library organization in the world. The ALA has a membership of more than 66,000 librarians, library trustees and library supporters. Its mission is to promote the highest quality library and information services and public access to information.
"I am honored by the confidence of my colleagues and excited by the prospect of building on the many achievements of my recent predecessors. I will work very hard to be worthy of this great honor," Gorman said.
Gorman is a member of the ALA Executive Board (2003-2006) and ALA Council (2002-2005). He has served as chair of the ALA Pay Equity Committee and as a member of the ALA Resolutions Committee. He is a past president of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of ALA, and an active member of the California Library Association, where he has served on numerous committees.
Gorman has taught at library schools in his native Britain and in the United States – most recently at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1977 to 1988, he worked at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Library as, successively, director of technical services, director of general services, and acting university librarian. From 1966 to 1977, he worked at the British Library. Gorman has published widely and was the first editor of the "Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules," second edition, in 1978 and its 1988 revision.
Gorman received the 2001 Highsmith Award for his book, "Our Enduring Values." He has been awarded the 1997 Blackwell's Award for "Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, and Reality" by Walt Crawford and Gorman, the 1992 Dewey Medal and the 1979 Margaret Mann Citation. Gorman received his library education in Great Britain at the Ealing School of Librarianship. He was elected a Fellow of the (British) Library Association in 1979.
Leslie Burger, director of the Princeton (N.J.) Public Library, today also began her term as ALA president-elect. She will assume the ALA presidency in June 2006, at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.
