School of Information professor Loriene Roy launched her campaign Friday to run for the president of the American Library Association, as the first American Indian candidate.
More than 50 of Roy's supporters gathered in the Carver Branch of the Austin Public Library to meet each other and kick off Roy's campaign. The ALA is the largest and oldest library association in the world and it serves to promote library services and public access to information.
Roy said the ALA presidency would be an opportunity to bring visibility to the communities with which she works. The campaign focuses on extending the love of reading to all children, said Beth Hallmark, library and information science graduate student and manager of Roy's student-run campaign.
"She breaks the stereotype of what a librarian is," said Gustavo Soto, graduate student in the School of Information and campaign treasurer. He described an older woman with glasses and "shushes" people and who is only concerned with books and check-out rules. "Dr. Roy is more focused on the bigger issue," Soto said. "She focuses on minorities and people who don't have access to even books or libraries."
Roy founded If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything, a national reading club for American Indian children. Roy, an Anishinabe Indian, is enrolled on the White Earth Reservation and is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.
"She very much is about what people can do together as a community and how people can come together and bring their own culture, their own history and celebrate that as well," Hallmark said. "Culture is an important part of who she is."
Roy attended the Oregon Institute of Technology before earning her master's in library science from the University of Arizona and her Ph.D in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The ALA president serves a one-year term, functioning as the chief spokesperson for the more than 65,000 members of the association. Each year, a nine-person nominating committee selects two candidates to run for the presidency.
Bill Crowe, director of the University of Kansas' Spencer Research Library, was also selected to run. His campaign focuses on making libraries the "center of the information-seeking world."
Crowe and Roy will participate in a one-hour debate in January at the ALA midwinter meeting. Voting will take place from March 15 until April 24. The winner will serve one year as president elect, one year as president and one year as immediate past president.
The candidates must raise all the funds on their own. Roy estimated that her campaign would cost between $6,000 and $8,000 and that her team has sent out invitations asking people to donate.
"It's like running for president of a small country; we have balloons, we have bumper stickers and brochures are under development," Roy said.
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