ALTAFF Supports Spectrum Presidential Initiative

Contact: Miguel A. Figueroa


Office for Diversity & Spectrum


312-280-5295


mfigueroa@ala.org

NEWS


For Immediate Release


March 23, 2010

CHICAGO—The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF) has expressed its commitment to diversity in the library profession through a gift of $500 to the American Library Association’s (ALA) Spectrum Scholarship Program. During this year’s special Spectrum Presidential Initiative, four ALTAFF Board Members –Sally Gardner Reed, Peggy J. Danhof, Peggy Barber and Joan Ress Reeves—have combined efforts to match ALTAFF’s gift.




At the 2009 ALA Annual Conference, ALA President Dr. Camila Alire, Immediate Past President Jim Rettig, President-Elect Roberta Stevens and ALA Past President Dr. Betty J. Turock, chair of the initiative, announced the Spectrum Presidential Initiative, a special one-year campaign to raise $1 million for the Spectrum Scholarship Program. Through this initiative, ALA aims to meet critical needs of supporting master’s-level scholarships, providing two $25,000 Doctoral scholarships, increasing the Spectrum Endowment to ensure the program’s future and developing special programs for recruitment and career development.




ALTAFF’s contribution will allow ALA to continue to support master’s-level Spectrum Scholarships.


Rose Mosley, ALTAFF president, said of the gift, “It’s important for us, as Trustees, that we have the widest available pool of excellent library director candidates to lead our libraries. The Spectrum Scholarship Program is an important component to ensure that librarians of all colors and backgrounds are brought into our profession.”




ALTAFF is a division of ALA with approximately 5,000 Friends of the Library, Trustee, Foundation and individual members and affiliates representing hundreds of thousands of library supporters. Begun in early 2009 with the merger of Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA) and the Association for Library Trustees and Advocates (ALTA), the new division brings together Trustees and Friends into a partnership that unites the voices of citizens who support libraries to create a powerful force for libraries in the 21st Century. For more information about ALTAFF, please contact Jillian Kalonick at (312) 280-2161 or jkalonick@ala.org.




The Spectrum Scholarship Program is ALA's national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of underrepresentation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future. Since its founding, Spectrum has provided more than 600 scholarships to qualified applicants enrolled in an ALA-accredited graduate program in library and information studies or an ALA-recognized NCATE School Library Media program. To learn more about the Spectrum Scholarship Program, visit
www.ala.org/spectrum.




For more information about the Spectrum Presidential Initiative or to make an online donation, visit
http://spectrum.ala.org. To learn more, get involved, or to make a pledge to the Spectrum Presidential Initiative, contact Miguel A. Figueroa, Director, Office for Diversity & Spectrum at
mfigueroa@ala.org, or Kim Olsen-Clark, Director, Development Office at
kolsen-clark@ala.org.