Wanda Brown Elected Next President of ALA

Wanda Brown, director of library services at the C.G. O’Kelly Library at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, has been elected president-elect of the American Library Association. Brown received 6,066 votes, while her opponent, Peter Hepburn, the head librarian of College of the Canyons, in Santa Clarita, Calif., received 4,066 votes. Brown will serve as president-elect for one year before stepping into her role as president at the close of the 2019 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

An ALA member for 30 years, Brown is an active member of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association for Libraries Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA). She has held multiple leadership positions within each division, as well as numerous positions with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA), including her current service as treasurer (2016-2018), and service as president (2014-16), treasurer (1992-96) and two terms as an executive board member (2001-03, 2014-16). She was the 2011-13 president of the North Carolina Library Association, and has held various other positions with NCLA, including treasurer (1991-98) and the 2005-09 chair of the finance committee.

She is the 2015 recipient of the DEMCO/ALA Black Caucus Award for Excellence, the 2013 BCALA Leadership Award, and the 2012 BCALA Distinguished Service Award. In 2009, she received University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) Kovacs Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement, and in 2013, UNCG awarded Brown with the School of Education Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award.