ALA Presidential Candidates Forum for Canadian LIS Students and Professionals

February 19, 2022

The Library and Information Studies Students’ Association (LISSA) at the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) has organized an forum with the candidates for 2023-2024 American Library Association (ALA) President, Emily Drabinski and Kelvin Watson.

During this forum, both candidates will be sharing their vision for the future of ALA, and their thoughts on how Canadian LIS students and professionals can get involved with ALA initiatives and events.

ALA Candidates Forum for Canadian LIS Students

The University of Alberta’s Library and Information Studies Students’ Association (LISSA) would like to invite all LIS students and faculty to the ALA Candidates Forum for Canadian LIS Students, featuring the candidates for 2023-2024 ALA President, Emily Drabinski and Kelvin Watson.

This one-hour event will be taking place over Zoom on February 22, 2022, at 5:00 pm MT / 7:00 pm EST. During this forum, both candidates will be sharing their vision for the future of ALA, and their thoughts on how Canadian LIS students and professionals can get involved with ALA initiatives and events. Students and faculty are welcome to attend!

One of these candidates will be taking the reins at ALA just as many current students are graduating from their programs and entering the workforce. They will be instrumental in enacting policies and pushing forward initiatives that will profoundly impact our work, our education, and our profession at large. This forum is an opportunity for students to get to know a future ALA President, and to ask questions about ALA in the context of Canadian librarianship.

Please feel free to email lissa@ualberta.ca with any questions that you may have for the candidates! You can also include them in the Questions and Comments section of the registration form below. We will be having a Q&A portion near the end of the event, where participants can ask questions directly.

Registration:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJModOCrqzwrHNJvYt1vHNIE2bXmbCTop6rG

Speakers:

Emily Drabinski is the interim chief librarian at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). She has served as chair of the International Relations Committee (2020-21), ALA councilor-at-large (2018-20) and chair of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Frameworks and Standards Committee (2019-20). She is an active member of ACRL and Core (Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures). She is co-chair of the ACRL President’s Program Planning Committee (2020-21) and serves as reviews editor for College & Research Libraries. She is also a member of several round tables: the International Relations Round Table (IRRT), the Library Support Staff Interests Round Table (LSSIRT), the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT), the Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT), and the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT). She holds an MLIS from Syracuse University, a BA in political science from Columbia University, and an MA in composition and rhetoric from Long Island University, Brooklyn.

Kelvin Watson is the executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. He co-chairs the ALA Digital Content Working Group and is on the ALA Business Advisory Group. He has served on the ALA Committee on Accreditation (2016-2017) and on an ALA Presidential Task Force. He was an ALA Spectrum Scholar (2006), a RUSA Spectrum Intern (2007-2008), and an AASL Member/Spectrum Scholar 2007. He was a PLA director-at-large (2018-21) and holds membership in EMIERT and BCALA, which he served as president (2014-16), executive board member (2006-2018), fundraising chair (2008-10) and budget and finance chair (2010-12). He is the executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. He co-chairs the ALA Digital Content Working Group and is on the ALA Business Advisory Group. He has served on the ALA Committee on Accreditation (2016-2017) and on an ALA Presidential Task Force. He was an ALA Spectrum Scholar (2006), a RUSA Spectrum Intern (2007-2008), and an AASL Member/Spectrum Scholar 2007. He was a PLA director-at-large (2018-21) and holds membership in EMIERT and BCALA, which he served as president (2014-16), executive board member (2006-2018), fundraising chair (2008-10) and budget and finance chair (2010-12). He also served on the Southeast Florida Library Network board of directors (2017-2021), the Metropolitan New York Library Council board of trustees (2015-17) and as co-chair of the Florida Library Association’s Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Task Force (2020-2021). He currently serves on the board of the Book Industry Study Group (2018-21), was recently appointed to the Digital Public Library of America board, is a candidate for OCLC’s Global Council, and is a member of ALA’s Standards for Library Services for Incarcerated and Detained Individuals Working Group. He holds an MLS from North Carolina Central University and a BS in business administration from Lincoln University (Missouri).

Please reach out to lissa@ualberta.ca with any questions or concerns.

Warm regards,

Arianna Alcaraz
President, on behalf of the LISSA Executive

—

Library and Information Studies Students’ Association
School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta