Gorman elected ALA president

Michael Gorman

Michael Gorman, dean of Library Services at the Henry Madden Library will be president of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2005-2006 term.

He was elected in May, became president-elect in July and will assume the ALA presidency in July 2005, following the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. He will serve a one-year term as president.

As ALA president, Gorman will be the chief elected officer for the oldest and largest library organization in the world. The ALA has a membership of more than 64,000 librarians, library trustees and library supporters. Its mission is to promote the highest quality library and information services and public access to information.

"I am thrilled to have been elected and look forward very much to being ALA's vice-president/president-elect” this year,” he said. 

Gorman is a member of the ALA Executive Board (2003-2006) and ALA Council (2002-2005).  He has served as chair of the ALA Pay Equity Committee and as a member of the ALA Resolutions Committee. He is a past president of the Library and

Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of ALA, and an active member of the California Library Association, where he has served on numerous committees.

Gorman has taught at library schools in his native Britain and in the United States – most recently at the University of California, Los Angeles.  From 1977 to 1988, he worked at the University of Illinois ( Urbana) Library as, successively, director of technical services, director of general services and acting university librarian.

From 1966 to 1977, he worked at the British Library. Gorman has published widely and was the first editor of the "Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules," second edition, in 1978 and its 1988 revision.

Gorman received the 2001 Highsmith Award for his book, “Our Enduring Values."  Shortly after its publication, the Madden Library staff surprised Gorman by selecting the book as the 1,000,001st   volume.

Gorman has been awarded the 1997 Blackwell's Award for "Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, and Reality" by Walt Crawford and Gorman, the 1992 Dewey Medal and the 1979 Margaret Mann Citation.

In the fall of 2002, Gorman was among five renowned librarians and scholars to speak at “A Celebration of Libraries,” an international event to mark the 400th anniversary of the refounding of Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.

Gorman received his library education in Great Britain at the Ealing School of Librarianship. He was elected a Fellow of the (British) Library Association in 1979.