Loida Garcia-Febo reflects on a successful year

Message from the IRRT Chair
International Leads, Volume 33, Issue 2, June 2018

As chair, my theme for the year 2017-2018 was Library services to immigrants and refugees. I am happy to report the following notable accomplishments among others:

• We successfully organized and presented an international webinar series under the Library Services to Immigrants and Refugees theme.
• We established an Endowment and awarded the first IRRT Mission Enhancement Grant.
• Team G of ALA’s Emerging Leaders collaborated with IRRT on a project that would help increase the engagement of international members including new professional leaders in ALA activities.

Much appreciation to all the IRRT members for their contributions to conference programs, online events and to this newsletter. A special mention goes to each one of the Publications Committee members who have increased posts on the IRRT blog and Facebook page. Rebecca and Florence, our IL editors, took this publication to a higher level. Joan Weeks lead an effort to renew our IRRT website within ALA and the results are fantastic.

Muchas gracias to Delin Guerra from ALA Headquarters for her unwavering support.
My personal thanks go to members of the IRRT Executive Board and committees for their enthusiasm, commitment, and dedication to make things happen. We did it! We had a great year and now we look forward to the next cohort of leaders that will take the IRRT through 2018-2019.

Heartfelt congratulations and a big welcome to our colleagues elected to the IRRT board in ALA’s recent elections: Chair-Elect: Richard Sapon-White, Member-at-Large: Florence N. Mugambi, and Round Table Councilor: Sandy Hirsh.

Thanks to the hard work of our committee members, this year we are fortunate to present many programs, including our IRRT Pre-conference at the annual conference in New Orleans to help library workers serve immigrants and refugees in libraries. Personally, I am very happy everyone embraced the Chair’s theme and coordinated events featuring models, best practices and recommendations to serve these populations. If you are planning to attend the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, do not miss our programs!

I hope to greet many of you at our International Reception at the BB King’s Club in New Orleans which is being coordinated by the International Reception Committee. It promises to be a spectacular event. It was my pleasure to be the IRRT Chair. You all rock! I am very fortunate. This is a most interesting time when I end my term as IRRT Chair and also move from being ALA President-Elect to ALA President. I am looking forward to continue collaborating with my dear international colleagues in that capacity. Stay tuned for news on the ALA communication channels.

Read more in the June 2018 International Leads at http://www.ala.org/rt/sites/ala.org.rt/files/content/intlleads/leadsarchive/201806.pdf