LIRT News March 98

Tim Grimes Runs for ALA Council

by Carole Hinshaw, chinshaw@mail.ucf.edu

When you receive your ballot, please take the time to identify librarians with strong instructional backgrounds, or other Round Table backgrounds and, most importantly, vote. Currently, there is no representative for Round Tables at Council meetings. It is especially important that library instruction have a voice in these professional meetings.

Tim Grimes, one of LIRT's most active members, is running for ALA Council this year. Members are encouraged to vote for Tim, who has served as LIRT President, Treasurer, and as chair of several committees. These experiences testify to his ability to serve and to represent LIRT interests in Council.

Currently the Associate Director of Bibliographic Services and Community Relations at Ann Arbor (Michigan) District Library, Tim has been an active member of ALA since the mid-1980's, and has served PLA and RUSA, in addition to LIRT. Tim has been a member of the Round Table Coordinating Committee, representative to the ALA Planning and Budget Assembly, and representative to the ALA Literacy Council. His state professional activities include Michigan Library Association, Michigan Author Award Committee, Beta Phi Mu, Board of Directors, and Southeast Michigan Adult Reading Roundtable co-founder.

Tim offers the following thoughts as his statement of professional concern:

"Whether employed in public, school, special, or university libraries, library staff today are faced with constant change. The rapid introduction of new technologies and cyberspace resources have noticeably

heightened user expectation. Traditional reference, and reader's advisory services must now be supplemented with technological expertise. Library managers are also faced with new training and development needs as workforce demands increase. The library profession has undergone enormous

transformation.

"ALA Council must respond to this rapid shifting of the library landscape. Council members must be proactive leaders of the profession, anticipating change and forging new directions. We cannot merely react as old environments and patterns of thought are replaced and remodeled. Change is now part of our profession; it is imperative that we be ready to actively manage it.

Carole Hinshaw is the Coordinator of Library Instruction at the University of Central Florida and chair of the LIRT Elections Committee.

LIRT News, March 1998. Volume 20, number 3.
To report problems, please contact the LIRT News Production editor at edwards@ufl.edu