For Immediate Release NEWS
July 1995

Ching-chih Chen ALA Presidential Candidate

Ching-chih Chen has been nominated as a candidate for ALA President Elect. Dr. Chen has spent over 35 years serving the library and information science community as an award-winning public and academic librarian, teacher, speaker, consultant, researcher, and innovator.

In addition to being author/editor of 26 books and over 100 journal articles and reports, Dr. Chen has a devoted career as an educator in better preparing librarians for the new information age. She is a Professor and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, as well as an energetic director of over 60 continuing education institutes relating to information technology, management and policy. Her deep concerns in global internetworking of libraries around the world prompted her to organize a series of international conferences on new information technology (NIT) sponsored by the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

As an active crusader in the ALA since 1976, Dr. Chen takes pride in furthering the association's endeavors through involvement as an author of the baseline document on citizens' information needs for the First White House Conference; three-term Councilor-at-Large (1981-1993); member, Legislation Committee (1981-1985); Chair, Legislative Committee (1984-1985); member, Council-elected Assembly of Planning and Budget (1990-1992), Director of the Board for the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), and others. In addition to ALA, Dr. Chen has also been actively involved in various professional committees and Executive Boards of organizations such as the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

A representative sample of the many awards and honors that Dr. Chen has received include the Distinguished Alumnus Awards from her alma maters including the University of Michigan School of Library Science (1980); the ASIS Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award (1983); election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1985); ALA's Certificates of Appreciation (1985, 1989, 1993); the LITA/Gaylord Award for Achievement in Library Information Technology (1990); the LITA/Library Hi Tech Award (1994); and the Emerson Greenaway Distinguished Award of the New England Library Association (1994). In October 1994 MacUser chose her multimedia CD-ROM, The First Emperor of China, as one of their 50 best CD-ROMs, a product also honored by the Association for Visual Communicators with its Cindy Award (1992).

This extensive background positions Dr. Chen for the challenge of the ALA's commitment to establishing a presence in the new information age, as expressed in ALA Goal 2000, as well as President Betty Turock's platform, as articulated in her Inaugural speech. Dr. Chen's career has included championing a free and open information society with goals of improving information services for everyone. Her high-degree technology competency and her strong desire to impart this knowledge led her to develop many baseline training institutes for librarians. For example, in 1994, she worked with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissions under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Education in developing a series of 8 Science Reference Institutes offered to over 500 school and public libraries in Massachusetts. These institutes have already resulted in numerous innovative activities in MA as well as proposals to the Board.

Dr. Chen holds a bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University, a master's degree in library science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a doctorate in information science from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband, Professor Sow-Hsin Chen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her 96-year old mother. They have two married daughters and one son -- Dr. Anne Chen, a genetic specialist with the Cornell Medical School, Dr. Catherine Chen, a senior residence in pediatric surgery with the Harvard teaching hospitals, and John Chen, a Ph.D. candidate in materials science at MIT.