LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund to Celebrate 40th Anniversary at Folger Shakespeare Library in June

Contact: Jonathan Kelley


Merritt Fund Program Coordinator


(800) 545-2433 x4226


jokelley@ala.org

For Immediate Release


January 5, 2010

CHICAGO –
The Leroy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund, founded in 1970 to help librarians who have been denied employment rights because of their defense of intellectual freedom or because of discrimination, turns 40 years old in 2010.





To celebrate this landmark anniversary, the Merritt Fund will be having a gala dinner on Monday, June 28, 2010 in conjunction with the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The event will be held at the world-famous
Folger Shakespeare Library from 6:30–9:30 p.m. and will feature a special address by ALA past-president Carol Brey-Casiano. In addition, the Folger Library is offering a special “behind the scenes” tour starting at 5:30 p.m.




Tickets are $75 for the dinner and $50 for the tour, with proceeds benefiting the Merritt Fund. Tickets for this event are available via ALA’s Annual Conference registration system (note that you do not have to register for the Annual Conference to attend this special event). Visit
www.ala.org/annual to purchase your tickets.

The Merritt Fund 40th Anniversary Celebration is cosponsored by ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Round Table and ALA President Camila Alire. For more information, visit
www.merrittfund.org. Help the Merritt Fund help librarians in need by attending the 40th Anniversary Celebration or making a donation to the Merritt Fund!


The LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund was established in 1970 as a special trust in memory of Dr. LeRoy C. Merritt. It is devoted to the support, maintenance, medical care, and welfare of librarians who, in the Trustees’ opinion, are:

  • Denied employment rights or discriminated against on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race, color, creed, religion, age, disability or place of national origin; or
  • Denied employment rights because of defense of intellectual freedom; that is, threatened with loss of employment or discharged because of their stand for the cause of intellectual freedom, including promotion of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the freedom of librarians to select items for their collections from all the world’s written and recorded information and defense of privacy rights.