Whereas, Ching-chih Chen has been a long time CALA member, and for her accomplishments, CALA awarded to her the first CALA Distinguished Services Award in 1980; and she has spent nine years as an ALA Councilor-at-Large;

Whereas, Ching-chih Chen is the only candidate whose achievements go far beyond her research and publication records, and reach into many facets of the library community. As an educator, she educates and trains all types of librarians to face the challenges of this exciting time. As a leader, Dr. Chen has been actively involved (a) in ALA, having been on the Council for three terms, (b) in LITA, as a recent Board member, and for her accomplishments, she is the only person ever to receive both of the highest awards from LITA -- LITA/ Gaylord Award in Achievement in Information Technology and the LITA/Hi Tech Award;

Whereas, Ching-chih Chen has been instrumental in introducing electronic information resources to public and school librarians through more than 60 training institutes, under the sponsorship of the US Department of Education;

Whereas, Ching-chih Chen is taking us always one step beyond. Concerns on information access prompted her to lead the profession in the effective use of new information technology beyond the traditional means of providing information access, and has driven her to promote global internetworking of libraries beyond our own;

Whereas, Ching-chih Chen has the vision to bring technology directly to the users. Her pioneering cutting-edge technology work on The First Emperor of China has demonstrated that. As Dr. Chen was quoted in the article on the "First Emperor of China" in Multimedia Today: "Giving users the ability to create, edit and manage new viewing and navigational organizations from an existing knowledge base changes users from being simply passively interactive to being actively interactive because they are empowered to augment the knowledge base with their own knowledge;"

Whereas, Ching-chih Chen can accomplish most challenging tasks in the most dynamic high-tech environment. For example, she has effectively disseminated her research results directly to multi-levels of the library community. Her "First Emperor of China" multimedia CD-ROM was chosen by the popular Mac Users (October 1994) as one of the world 50 Best CD-ROMs, and was featured in the "Mix media" section of the Book of the Month Club catalog. The product reaches not only individual users, but also school libraries where it is considered a first rated instructional tool for arts and history education, and academic libraries where it helps history professors in their research on comparative studies involving Asian history;

Whereas, with her conciliatory spirit and endless energy that reach beyond any single ethnic group, Ching-chih Chen is the best person to promote culture diversity within ALA to serve the increasingly diverse population in the workplace and in society;