Freedom to Read Foundation announces 2008 Board of Trustees election winners
Contact: Judith Krug
Director, Office for Intellectual Freedom
(312) 280-4222
ftrf@ala.org
NEWS
For Immediate Release
May 20, 2008
Freedom to Read Foundation announces 2008 Board of Trustees election winners
CHICAGO - The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2008 Board of Trustees election, held in April. Five trustees were elected to two-year terms, beginning in June: Carrie Gardner, Barbara M. Jones, Burton Joseph, Pamela Klipsch, and Kenton Oliver. Joseph was re-elected; Gardner, Jones, Klipsch, and Oliver are newly elected, although Oliver served on the board in an ex officio capacity during his recently concluded term as chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC).
These trustees will join Bernadine Abbott Hoduski (Helena, Mont.), Therese Bigelow (Chesapeake, Va.), Robert P. Doyle (Chicago), John K. Horany (Dallas), James G. Neal (New York) and Judith Platt (Washington, D.C.) as elected board members. The American Library Association President (James Rettig), President Elect (Camila Alire), Executive Director (Keith Michael Fiels), and Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair (J. Douglas Archer) serve on the board in an ex-officio capacitying privileges. Judith Krug is the secretary of the board and executive director of the Foundation.
Biographical information on the election winners follows:
Carrie Gardner (Kutztown, Penn.) is an assistant professor at the Kutztown University Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology. She has served four terms on the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and has served as chair of the American Association of School Librarians Intellectual Freedom Committee, the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Virginia Educational Media Association Intellectual Freedom Committee.
Barbara M. Jones (Middletown, Conn.) is the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian at Wesleyan University. She serves on the Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and was awarded the 2007 Robert Downs Intellectual Freedom Award from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has served on ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and twice chaired the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
Burton Joseph (Chicago) is an attorney with the firm Joseph, Lichtenstein, and Levinson. He has served as trial and appellate counsel in numerous censorship cases and has served on the board of the Media Coalition since its inception and as chairman for 13 years.
Pamela Klipsch (High Ridge, Mo.) is director of the Jefferson County, Mo., Library. She is an ALA councilor who has also served on ALA’s IFC and twice as chair of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Round Table. She serves as chair of Missouri’s Intellectual Freedom Committee.
Kenton Oliver (Canton, Ohio) is the executive director of the Stark County, Ohio, District Library. Oliver recently completed two terms as chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and has served on the Executive Board of ALA.
The Freedom to Read Foundation was founded in 1969 to promote and defend the right of individuals to freely express ideas and to access information in libraries and elsewhere. FTRF fulfills its mission through the disbursement of grants to individuals and groups, primarily for the purpose of aiding them in litigation, and through direct participation in litigation dealing with freedom of speech and of the press.