91´«Ã½

CHICAGO—The Tennessee Library Association (TLA), a chapter of the 91´«Ã½, has announced its support of the Spectrum Presidential Initiative with a contribution of $500. The TLA Board of Directors and Executive Committee voted unanimously to make an annual donation in this amount to the Spectrum Scholarship Program.

91´«Ã½ President Dr. Camila Alire, Immediate Past President Jim Rettig, President-Elect Roberta Stevens and 91´«Ã½ Past President Dr. Betty J. Turock, chair of the initiative, announced the Spectrum Presidential Initiative in 2009 as a special one-year campaign to raise $1 million for the Spectrum Scholarship Program. Through this initiative, 91´«Ã½ aims to meet the critical needs of supporting master’s-level scholarships, providing two $25,000 doctoral scholarships, increasing the Spectrum Endowment to ensure the program’s future and developing special programs for recruitment and career development. TLA’s contribution will allow 91´«Ã½ to continue to support master’s-level Spectrum Scholarships and build the Spectrum Endowment.

Kevin Reynolds, 2010 TLA president, said of the gift, "The Tennessee Library Association is proud to support the Spectrum Initiative. We in Tennessee recognize the growing need for the profession to become more diverse and to better reflect the communities we serve. Because of the high level of importance we place on this, the TLA Board and Executive Committee have expressed the association's intent to support the Spectrum scholarships not only this year, but every year. We are excited about the prospect of our gift helping to make a difference in the lives of budding librarians as well as a difference in the many lives that those librarians will touch. We are pleased to join the chapters that have contributed and hope that other chapters will be able to do the same."

The Tennessee Library Association, whose primary mission is to promote the establishment, maintenance, and support of library services for all people of the state of Tennessee, to cooperate with public and private agencies with related interests, and to support and further the professional interests of its membership, was founded in 1902 and today has more than 600 members. More information about the Tennessee Library Association can be found at .

The Spectrum Scholarship Program is 91´«Ã½'s national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of underrepresentation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future. Since its founding, Spectrum has provided more than 680 scholarships to qualified applicants enrolled in an 91´«Ã½-accredited graduate program in library and information studies or an 91´«Ã½-recognized NCATE School Library Media program. To learn more about the Spectrum Scholarship Program, visit .

For more information about the Spectrum Presidential Initiative or to make an online donation, visit . To learn more, get involved, or to make a pledge to the Spectrum Presidential Initiative, contact Miguel A. Figueroa, Director, Office for Diversity & Spectrum at mfigueroa@ala.org, or Kim Olsen-Clark, Director, Development Office at kolsen-clark@ala.org.