Welcome to the 2023 APALA Elections! Elections open on Monday, February 6, 2023 (12:00 am Eastern Time) and end on Friday, March 3rd, 2023 (11:59 PM Eastern Time).
Please vote on Vice President/President Elect, Secretary, and Member at Large (two positions).
We also need your votes for 4 amendments in order to make changes to our Constitution and Bylaws.
Each eligible voting member will receive a ballot via email. Eligible members include active members (Free, Library Support Staff, Life, Personal, Retiree, Student, Unemployed, and Corporate) in good standing on or before February 3rd, 2023. Institutional members are ineligible to vote.
Thank you to all APALA members willing to serve!
Sincerely,
APALA Nominating Committee
Ray Pun, Janet H. Clarke, and Ven Basco
nominating@apalaweb.org
President-Elect/Vice President:
- Cynthia Mari Orozco
Secretary:
- Jenay Dougherty
Member At Large:
- Amy Kyung-eun Breslin
- Ann Matsushima Chiu
- Neil Ordinario
- Elaine Tai
Candidate Information
President-Elect/Vice President:
Cynthia Mari Orozco
Cynthia Mari Orozco is the Equity + OER Librarian at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park and South Gate, California. As a community college librarian, Cynthia engages in instruction, reference, and outreach work and has served as the de facto OER librarian for the past several years. She is also particularly interested in the “community” dimension of open education and how OER can reflect and teach to the unique local, hyperlocal, and cultural contexts of their respective communities. Prior to ELAC, Cynthia was the Student Services Librarian at California State University, Long Beach where she first became involved in textbook affordability initiatives. Cynthia’s additional professional and research interests include critical information literacy, oral history, and scholarly communications in community college contexts. She earned her MLIS from San José State University and is a current PhD candidate in Information Studies at UCLA. She is an APALA Travel Award recipient, 2015 ALA Emerging Leader sponsored by APALA, and has served on many APALA committees, as well as Member-at-Large on the APALA Executive Board.
Statement of Interest: I am honored to have been nominated for the position of APALA Vice President/President Elect. APALA is the first professional organization that I truly felt connected with. I was the recipient of the 2011 APALA Travel Award, which enabled me to attend my first ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. I’m pretty sure a stipulation of this award was that I serve on the Scholarships and Awards Committee, which is how I got hooked on APALA. From that point on, I’ve served on several other committees and chaired several as well, and I have served as Member-at-Large on the APALA Executive Board. Over the last decade and some change, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside so many of you and would be honored to serve as your Vice President/President Elect.
The last several years have been challenging and difficult for so many, including our AAPI community. While isolated at home during the pandemic, I was especially grateful for the many online opportunities I had to engage with APALA colleagues, and I hope to continue those online community-building opportunities as we begin to re-engage in our in-person interactions at conferences and other various events. My goal as APALA Vice President/President Elect is to continue to hold space for our community and support AAPI library work with you all. As APALA has given so much to me from the earliest point of my career, I am honored to be considered for this role in APALA.
Secretary
Jenay Dougherty
My name is Jenay Dougherty and I am an Undergraduate Engagement Librarian at the University of Iowa. Originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, I grew up biracial with a Palauan father and American mother. I graduated with my MLS from Emporia State University in 2015. I began my career as a Diversity Resident Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I have served in my role as Undergraduate Engagement Librarian at the University of Iowa since 2018. In my role I primarily provide library instruction and support for undergraduates in the departments of Rhetoric and TRIO Student Support Services. I also serve as a liaison to the Asian Pacific American Cultural Center, where I collaborate with students on programs and events, as well as being a general point of service for the Libraries. In my spare time I like to watch a lot of streaming shows, occasionally read, and care for my plants and pets.
Statement of Interest: I’ve been a member of APALA since 2016. Since then I’ve served and collaborated on several committees, including the ALA APALA President’s program in 2019 and assisted then APALA President Paolo Gujilde with APALA’s poster for the Diversity & Outreach program. I have also served on the Family Literacy Focus Committee, specifically on the Talk Story subcommittee. Currently I am co-chairing the Engagement Task Force. I am interested in serving APALA further through Executive Board and potentially broadening its outreach to the Pacific Islander community.
Member-At-Large
Amy Kyung-eun Breslin
Amy Kyung-eun Breslin (she/her) is the Outreach Librarian for the Lorain Public Library System (OH). Working collaboratively across the county system, her role implements strategic planning initiatives and community engagement. She is also a member of the statewide committee piloting the IMLS-funded Building Equity Based Summers initiative. Beyond the branch walls, her work focuses on building partnerships that emphasize the agency and goals of community stakeholders through generative practice. In collaboration with partner organizations she facilitates programs for empowering youth through literacy justice, identity development, and collective awareness.
Amy holds an MLIS degree from Kent State University (OH) and was a 2019 ALA Spectrum Scholar. She was a protégé in the APALA mentoring program (2018-2019), has served on the Family Literacy Focus (FLF) committee since 2019, and was the committee’s Chair 2020-2021 and Co-Chair 2021-2022. With much support from FLF members, APALA Executive Board, AILA Talk Story committee, and in collaboration with APALA Media & Publicity committee, she coordinated the revision of the Talk Story web content and grant application and migration to a new host location. Again with much support from FLF members and APALA Executive Board, she initiated a project to redesign the Talk Story logo in collaboration with AILA. While Chair/Co-Chair of FLF, she co-authored the APALA Rubric to Evaluate Asian American and Pacific Islander Youth Literature. With support from APALA Executive Board, upon Dr. Nicole Cooke’s invitation, she co-presented the Rubric for the Augusta Baker Diversity Lecture series (2022); the same year, she and her co-authors were selected to present the Rubric at the ALSC National Institute. She also participated as a panelist in the APALA/CALA Path to Leadership: National Forum on Advancing Asian/Pacific Islander American Librarianship (2022). She is currently serving on the ALA Committee on Literacy (2022-2024) and recently received the JCLC Advocacy Award for APALA (2022).
Statement of Interest: I am deeply honored to be considered for a Member-at-Large position. I joined APALA while in library school and participated in the mentoring program. My mentor, Johana Orellana Cabrera, immediately welcomed me and helped connect me to the APALA community. I have tremendous appreciation and gratitude for the relationships and professional development APALA has provided me. I take pride in our organization and champion APALA to actively recruit members whenever possible within my workplace, locale, and at LIS conferences. As APALA has always been a place of belonging and support for me, I hope to continue cultivating a culture of belonging and community care practice for current and prospective members.
Through my service on the FLF committee, I have been able to lean into my passion for intersectional, intergenerational community building and talk story community of practice as a mode of empowerment and reclamation. The generative issues faced by AANHPI communities are not new, but my hope is to help foster spaces where talk story community practice can bring healing and context to our experiences with power systems. Likewise, I hope to deepen our sense of collective solidarity as we raise consciousness and advance our community’s understanding of, and commitment to, social change. Our organization’s vast diversity across the information field, educational backgrounds, racial/ethnic subcultures, origin, abilities, etc., is our strength. I hope to continue the work that has been started by the leaders before us, towards leveraging our collective power to co-create a transformative space within LIS. Thank you for considering my nomination.
Ann Matsushima Chiu
Ann Matsushima Chiu (she/they) is an instruction librarian, zine librarian and community organizer, with experience in academic libraries, public libraries, and archives. Ann’s focus is in library instruction, adult education, zines and alternative publications, culturally responsive outreach and events programming, and online learning. Ann currently serves as the Social Sciences Librarian at Reed College in Portland, OR, having earned a MSLIS from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a BA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, and is currently pursuing a EdD in Leadership and Adult Education from City University of Seattle. Ann has served as a Member-at-Large on the ACRL-OR Board, is currently serving as a Board Member of Metroeast Community Media, a committee member of ACRL’s Instruction Section- Teaching Methods, and is a member of the Oregon Library Association, Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, ALA and ACRL. Their work can be found in Librarians with Spines: Information Agitators in the Age of Stagnation (Hinchas Press 2017), Zines in Libraries: Selecting, Purchasing and Processing (ALA Editions 2021), and Library & Information Science Research.
Statement of Interest: As a librarian who straddles the line between being considered early career or mid career, it feels right to start exploring new leadership opportunities that can stretch and grow me. While I have been somewhat reluctant to lead, I think being a Member-at-Large allows me to get to know the organization and possibly prepare me for future leadership if needed. I highly respect the current Board of APALA, and would very much like to learn organizational leadership and management skills from these individuals. I also would like to connect and collaborate with more API library workers, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to do so.
Neil Ordinario
Neil Kepoʻokela Ordinario is a diasporic Kanaka ʻŌiwi, Ilokano and haole settler on the lands of the Muwekma Ohlone people in the San Francisco Bay Area. No nā alahele na Kaʻahupāhau. No nā mamo o Kalihi. He is from the trails of Kaʻahupāhau (Puʻuloa). He is from the descendants of Kalihi Valley. He is the grandchild of sugar plantation laborers. He received a Masters of Library and Information Science from the San José State University iSchool focusing on library technology within collection development and diversity, equity & inclusion. He is the Library Technology Coordinator at SJSU’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. He currently co-chairs the Anti-Racism Assessment Working Group and is an active Pasifika representative for the SJSU Asian American/Pacific Islander Faculty and Staff Association. He is a loud voice for Kānaka rights, especially on and for the diaspora.
Statement of Interest: I feel an organization that represents me, should reflect me. My identity — as a kanaka, as an asian american, as a long time library staff member with an MLIS degree — provides me that foundation to be a voice for those like me, that sometimes marginalized in organization such as this. So as I continue to build this foundation, I am also nurturing this voice and this kuleana hana/responsibility to speak up and create pilina/relationship to the communities that reflect me. This position not only allows me an opportunity to connect and represent who I am, but to ulu/grow the partnerships within the APALA ʻohana for a stronger, cohesive organizational voice.
Elaine Tai
Elaine Tai is a Supervising Librarian for Children’s Services at the Berkeley Public Library Central location, where she helps guide and coordinate services and community engagement to serve local children and families. She’s greatly interested in the intersection of social justice and librarianship and the biases rooted throughout our profession, as well as issues like wayfinding and usability. Elaine is currently on the Youth Programming Advisory Committee for the Bay Area Book Festival, Advisory Board for California Libraries Learn (a California State Library & CLA project), and Co-Chair of the APALA Program Planning Committee, having previously worked on various other award and professional development committees. On a different note, she is the author of the picture book Yes Means Yes, illustrated by Kai Kwong – originally funded via Kickstarter, it is now forthcoming via Ulysses Press in June 2023. In her spare time she is a wannabe patron of the arts, mineral specimen addict, and a [very] amateur artist.
Statement of Interest: APALA has been an important organization for me in making connections and being in community in a field that is predominantly white. My time on the Literature Award, as the IMLS Project Assistant, and now as Co-Chair on the Program Planning Committee have been wonderful, and I am interested in serving APALA in a greater capacity. I believe the Member-at-Large role allows for both increased involvement as well as a greater look at the workings of such a caucus, and I am eager to do and learn more.