The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2007 Board of Trustees election, held in April. Six trustees were elected to two-year terms, beginning in June: Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, Therese Bigelow, Robert P. Doyle, John K. Horany, James G. Neal, and Judith Platt. Of these trustees, Bigelow, Neal, and Platt were re-elected; Abbott Hoduski, Doyle, and Horany are newly elected.

These trustees will join Francis J. Buckley (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Chris Finan (New York), Deborah Jacobs (Seattle, Wash.), Burton Joseph (Chicago), and Candace D. Morgan (Portland, Ore.) as elected board members. The American Library Association President (Loriene Roy), President Elect (James Rettig), Executive Director (Keith Michael Fiels), and Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair (Kenton Oliver) serve on the board in an ex-officio capacity, with vote. Judith Krug is the secretary of the board and executive director of the Foundation.

Biographical information on the election winners follows:

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski (Helena, Mont.) retired in 1997 after serving as professional librarian/staff member for the Joint Committee on Printing for nearly 25 years. Prior to joining the Joint Committee on Printing, she served as Head Librarian, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Kansas City, Mo., and as guest lecturer at Central Missouri State University and the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Library Schools. She was the founder of ALA’s Government Documents Round Table in 1972 and currently serves on the ALA Council.

Therese Bigelow (Kansas City, Mo.) is Associate Director of Strategic Planning & Community Development at the Kansas City, Mo., Public Library. She currently serves on the Marketing Public Libraries Committee of the Public Library Association and is an ALA Councilor.

Robert P. Doyle (Chicago) is Executive Director of the Illinois Library Association. From 1986–1996, Doyle was the director of ALA International Relations Office and the first director of the Library Fellows program, a joint program United States State Department and ALA. He has served as an ALA Councilor.

John K. Horany (Dallas) is an attorney in private practice. He was the ACLU’s cooperating attorney in the case Sund v. Wichita Falls, in which he won a ruling protecting public libraries from censorship. He serves on the faculty of ALA’s Lawyers for Libraries project.

James G. Neal (New York) is the Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University. He has served on the board of the Association of Research Libraries and the Executive Board of ALA.

Judith Platt (Washington, D.C.) is Director, Freedom to Read & Communications and Public Affairs, at the Association of American Publishers (AAP). As such, she is responsible for articulating AAP’s position on important free speech issues as laid down in the Freedom to Read Statement over 50 years ago.

The Freedom to Read Foundation was founded in 1969 to promote and defend the right of individuals to freely express ideas and to access information in libraries and elsewhere. FTRF fulfills its mission through the disbursement of grants to individuals and groups, primarily for the purpose of aiding them in litigation, and through direct participation in litigation dealing with freedom of speech and of the press.

Find out how (and why!) to join the Freedom to Read Foundation.