91´«Ã½

CHICAGO—OHIONET, on behalf of academic, public, school and special libraries in Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, has announced its support of the Spectrum Presidential Initiative with a contribution of $1,500.

91´«Ã½ President Roberta Stevens, Immediate Past President Dr. Camila Alire, 91´«Ã½ President-Elect Molly Raphael and 91´«Ã½ Past President Dr. Betty J. Turock, chair of the initiative, continue the Spectrum Presidential Initiative as a special 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. OHIONET’s contribution will allow 91´«Ã½ to continue to support master’s-level Spectrum Scholarships and build the Spectrum Endowment.

"The Spectrum Scholarship is an outstanding way to ensure a library workforce made up of people with a multitude of backgrounds and perspectives," said Michael P. Butler, executive director/CEO of OHIONET, "and OHIONET is happy to contribute to its efforts to attract and educate students from underserved populations."

As a membership organization, OHIONET provides value to libraries and information centers through innovative technology solutions, programs, products, training and consulting. OHIONET assists members in acquiring, implementing and using technology solutions to manage operations and resources to meet end user needs. For more info visit .

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 NCATE-AASL reviewed and approved school library education 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.