Mission & Responsibilities

The Emerging Leader Committee was established in order to promote membership in the Arkansas Library Association, the American Library Association, leadership in the profession of Librarianship, and to promote the ideals of the profession.

This committee will consist of at least 3 members and be chaired by a past Emerging Leader participant. Whenever possible, all committee members should be past Emerging Leader participants.

The Emerging Leader Committee is charged with selecting one annual candidate for the American Library Association Emerging Leader’s program based on the following parameters, in addition to the parameters that are set by the American Library Association.

• Be an ArLA member and an ALA member
  
• Must complete end of program evaluation/follow-up report
  
• Must write at least 1 Arkansas Libraries article about their experience and/or project
  
• Present at ArLA immediately following the Emerging Leader Term
  

Each annual Emerging Leader chosen by the Committee will receive a $2000 sponsorship to defray the cost of attending the ALA Mid-Winter Conference and ALA Annual Conference (for which attendance is required by the ALA guidelines).

Upon completing the Emerging Leader term, the selected recipient will receive recognition at the ArLA Annual Conference Award Banquet.

Past Arkansas Emerging Leaders by Date

2022 -  Emerging Leader - Marikit Fain
2020 -  Emerging Leader - Tonya Ryals
2019 -  Emerging Leader - Philip Shackelford
2018 -  Emerging Leader - Allie Stevens
2017 -  Emerging Leader - Sarah Gowdy Herford
2016 – Emerging Leader – Brittany Tavernaro
2015 – Emerging Leader - Rebecca Virden
•ALA HRDR Library Support Staff Web Project: The purpose of the project was to provide resources for library support staff and promote a culture of inclusion of library support staff within ALA, this project revised the current Library Support Staff Resource Center and found new resources of interest to library support staff. The project also included updating and incorporating into the revised website information on: paraprofessional organizations, library certification laws and regulations, and institutions offering certificate, associate, bachelor’s, master’s degrees in library studies. Content for the revised Resources for Library Support Staff site was divided up among six pages: • Homepage: information about HRDR and the different pages. • Education and Training: information about training resources, competencies, certification programs, library degree programs, and financial assistance. • Certification Information by State: provides detailed information about certification programs organized by state. • Library Degree Programs: provides detailed information about associate, bachelor’s, master’s degrees organized by state, includes in formation about Canadian programs. • Colleague Connection: includes national paraprofessional, state paraprofessional, and state associations. • Other Resources

2014 – Lacy Wolfe, Sponsored by the Arkansas Library Association
•Reaching Your Round Table: A Marketing and Communications Plan for the ALA LearnRT – Emerging Leader’s Team L surveyed the members of the Learning Round Table in order to ascertain communication preferences and current involvement with LearnRT in order to develop a marketing and communications plan.Project Details: The survey instrument included 12 questions both multiple choice and open-ended and was distributed via the listserv. Of the 480 listserv subscribers, 41 responses were received. Team L discovered that LearnRT members prefer communication via email and the LearnRT listserv with an interest in social media presence. From the survey’s open-ended responses, there is a clear interest in improving the group communications and making more up-to-date content available. There are a number of listserv subscribers who are not members of LearnRT, so there is an opportunity to recruit new members.A Marketing and Communications Plan was developed for the LearnRT based on findings from the survey. The plan includes communication goals and objectives which encompass social media, website maintenance, branding, outreach, and assessment. Additionally, a communications calendar is provided for the LearnRT to utilize in assigning tasks and delivering content in a timely manner.

2013 – Fallon Zschiegner-Bleich, Sponsored by the Arkansas Library Association
•Librarians Build Communities – We were given the task of resurrecting this project, first by rebuilding the Librarians Build Communities website and then by doing a social media blitz. We participated in several #libchats on Twitter and started a Librarians Build Communities FB page. Also, we updated the toolkits so that any library can use them to sponsor their own volunteer day or any local organization can have a volunteer day at a conference. The original plan was to have it work as a database for anyone to volunteer at any time, however, the plan was changed to make LBC about libraries working on their own to promote activism and volunteerism in their own communities. Thus, we changed the toolkits accordingly. Overall, while the newest group has changed many details of our media blitz, we think that our beginning jump off into social media and an updated webpage allowed for this year’s group to get ALA to recognize the benefit of having an LBC page on ALA’s site:  http://www.ala.org/groups/lbc.

2012 – Johnice Dominick, Sponsored by the Arkansas Library Association
•Developed a website for Reforma (The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking) promoting and providing information about Noche de Cuentos.Project Details: Noche de Cuentos is a family literacy initiative where Latino storytellers are invited to perform and help keep alive oral storytelling traditions. The website was developed at http://nochedecuentos.org/ along with printed bookmarks with the logo on one side and URL on the other. The website is still active and updated yearly with mini-grant information. There is also a directory of Latino storytellers. We also included files for the bookmark, logo, a poster, the art, and letterhead for participants to download.

2012 – Amber Wilson
2011 – Ashley Parker-Graves
•Visual Guide to “Deadlines ALA” – For this task, we were specifically asked to build off of the work of 2010 Emerging Leader Project L (http://connect.ala.org/node/106087) that sought to map ALA’s organizational structure. While building upon Team L’s tools and compiled data, our goal was to provide a calendar of ALA budget, committee work, conference, election, publication, scholarship/award and other time-based cycles. The work is intended to provide quick access to ALA-level action items, hard-to-locate forms, and information. We selected Drupal 6 and used the timeline module as a visual tool to display important dates and deadlines as they related to the ALA budget, committees, conference, elections, and publications. As we gathered more information about ALA, our own knowledge of the association increased significantly. We hope that like us, members accessing our tool will find the information to be actionable, as well as aid in greater association engagement. Though the intention for our timeline is for its eventual incorporation into the ALA website, we have also archived it at http://jaguars.andromedayelton.com. More detailed background information about the project and raw data can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/eljaguarselanza/.

2010 – Nicole Stroud
•Completed a marketing plan for MAGIRT, ALA’s Map & Geospatial Information Round Table.

2007 – Regina Cortez
•Created a marketing plan for LibraryCareers.org.

2007 – Ashley Pillow
•Work with ACRL president to manage and maintain the ACRL Wiki.