Brey-Casiano to deliver 2012 Coleman Lecture

[image1-right]Carol Brey-Casiano (MS '80), information resource officer for the U.S. Department of State, former director of libraries for the City of El Paso, Texas, and past-president of the American Library Association, will deliver the 2012 Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture, from 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m., Monday, June 25, during the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California.

Her lecture, “Diversity on the World Stage,” will draw from her experiences as a leader in U.S. libraries and in Colombia, Brazil, and Paraguay, three nations with which she is working closely in her current capacity with the U.S. Department of State. The lecture series honors Dr. Jean E. Coleman, the first director of the ALA Office for Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS), for her leadership in focusing the association's attention on issues affecting traditionally underserved and underrepresented people in libraries.

Brey-Casiano’s career as a public library administrator spans more than three decades, including service with the El Paso Public Library, the Thomas Branigan Memorial Library of Las Cruces (N.M.), the Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library, the Decatur (Ill.) Public Library, and the Eastern Oklahoma District Library System. She is a prominent and active leader in the library profession with a long record of supporting advocacy and library outreach services through her work in the Illinois Library Association, the Texas Library Association, the Public Library Association, REFORMA—The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, and as past-president of the American Library Association. A native of Evanston, Illinois, Brey-Casiano received her master of science degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science and is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Austin.  

The Jean Coleman Lecture is open to all Annual Conference attendees. This year’s event is coordinated by the Office for Literacy and Outreach Services Advisory Committee, John C. Sandstrom (chair), Nancy M. Allen, Maria Cahill, Lisa Crisman, Saroj Ghoting, J. Gabriel Gossett, Dee Holliday, Mary K. Kuehner, Maud Choice Mundava, Candice Pinder, and Roberta Craig Reasoner.

For more information, please visit www.ala.org/olos.