Críticas Magazine

Loida García-Febo

Camila Alire is running for ALA President
March 14, 2008

Camila is a dynamo. I’ve known Camila for almost six years. As a woman, I’ve always admired Camila because she has been President of REFORMA, President of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and named Dean Emerita at the University of New Mexico and at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Currenlty, she is the chair of ALA’s Committee on Legislation. 

Camila has experience in academic, school, and special libraries. 

Camila’s website explains her vision:

• Advocacy –training every library employee to tell our story and increasing support for all libraries and library employees at both the local and national levels.
• Better Funding and Better Salaries – with our advocacy efforts in full-swing, building champions for greater funding for our libraries, improving our status, and seeking higher salaries for ourselves.  This means developing more tools to help library employees obtain higher salaries and communicate their value to their users and decision-makers.
• Intellectual Freedom – defending our First Amendment rights and promoting sound information policies that provide greater access to information.
• Diversity/Inclusiveness – creating within our association and within our libraries an inclusive environment that celebrates differences and encourages participation.  Together, continuing to change the color of ALA and our profession.
• Equity of Access – championing access to information for all communities and providing the training to help libraries reach out to under-served populations.
• Literacy – moving our literacy efforts into the 21st century by focusing on reading, technological, and information skills which are essential to function in our society.

Awards: 

• ALA/ALTA National Advocacy Honor Roll 
• Mountain Plains Library Association’s Legislative Award for work on library advocacy
• Reforma Librarian of the Year
• ALA Elizabeth Futas Catalyst for Change Award (First recipient)
• Colorado Library Association’s Award for Exemplary Services to Ethnic Populations (1995 and 1998)
• Scholar-in-Residence for the Chicago Public Library System
• Hispanic Business Magazine’s one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country (1997)

Publications about various topics:

• Serving Latino Communities (2007 – co-author)
• Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders (2007 – co-author)
• Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook (2000 – editor/author)

Camila would be the first Latina President of ALA.

Posted by Loida García-Febo on March 14, 2008 | Comments (0)