ACRL Board of Directors’ Actions
Highlights of the Board’s 2024-2025 Meetings
For the final ALA LibLearnX, held January 24-27, 2025, the ACRL Board of Directors met virtually on January 30 and February 3. An informal virtual Board Update meeting was held on January 13. The Board also met virtually with the ACRL Budget and Finance Committee for a joint meeting on February 3. For the 2025 ALA Annual Conference, the ACRL Board met in person on June 28 and 29. The Board held an informal virtual Board Update meeting on June 13. In between ALA conferences, the Board held virtual meetings on October 23, 2024, and April 17, 2025.
At LibLearnX, the Board met virtually with the leaders of its five goal-area committees: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; New Roles and Changing Landscapes; Research and Scholarly Environment; Student Learning; and Value of Academic Libraries to assess progress on ACRL’s strategic plan, the Plan for Excellence. At Annual, the Board received updates from goal-area committee leaders for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Research and Scholarly Environment; Student Learning and Information Literacy; New Roles and Changing Landscapes (written report); and Value of Academic Libraries (written report).
At LibLearnX, the Board received updates from representatives of the Awards Coordinating Committee, Communities of Practice Review Task Force, and ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office. Also at LibLearnX, the ACRL Board and Budget and Finance Committee received an update on ACRL data products. At the Spring meeting, the Board received a preliminary update on the performance of the ACRL 2025 Conference. At LibLearnX and Annual, the Board received updates from ACRL’s liaison to the ALA Executive Board. At Annual, the Board received brief updates on ALA Forward, ALA Operating Agreement, and ALA Strategic Plan. In January and June, the Board reviewed the preliminary FY26 budgets for ACRL and Choice and will take action, prior to the ALA Executive Board, on the final budgets in late summer 2025.
Board members, whose service ended on June 30, 2025—Beth McNeil, Kara Whatley, Mary Mallery, and Yasmeen Shorish—were recognized and thanked for their service.
The ACRL Board of Directors took the following actions during the 2024-2025 program year.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
- Approved the use of a portion of the $10K TBD strategic initiatives budget in FY25 to fund the second year of memberships for the BIPOC and Librarians with Disabilities membership initiative to fund 40 ALA and ACRL memberships for library workers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (BIPOC) or library workers who identify as persons with disabilities.
Mallery, Rachel M. Minkin
Student Learning
- Approved a revision of the ACRL Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices: A Guideline.
Enabling Programs and Services
Strategic goal areas will be supported by financial and operational planning and will guide the development and implementation of programs and services that target education,
advocacy, and member engagement.
Advocacy
- Approved the 2025 ACRL Legislative Agenda.
Publications
- Established the ACRL/RBMS-SAA Joint Task Force for the Revision of the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy.
- Approved the Establishment of the ACRL RBMS-SAA Joint Task Force on Revision of the Art and Rare Materials BIBFRAME Ontology Extension.
Member Engagement
- Established the ACRL Artificial Intelligence (AI) Discussion Group and ACRL Sensory-Friendly Libraries Discussion Group. At Annual, the Board transitioned the Artificial Intelligence Discussion Group to the ACRL Artificial Intelligence Interest Group.
- Established the ACRL Communities of Practice Implementation Task Force.
- Renewed the Access Services Interest Group, Technical Services Interest Group, and Contemplative Pedagogy Interest Group.
- Dissolved the Balancing Baby and Book Discussion Group.
- Sunset the ACRL/ALA/ARL IPEDS Advisory Task Force.
- Updated the ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Editorial Board composition to include a past-chair role and allowing the vice-chair to serve up to seven consecutive years if serving after completing two consecutive terms as a regular member.
- Approved five recommendations for candidates for nomination to stand for election for International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) standing committees listed below:
- Academic and Research Libraries Section
- Art Libraries
- Rare Books and Special Collections
- Science and Technology Libraries
- Social Science Libraries
Enabling Programs and Services: Operations
- Approved the ACRL Budget & Finance Committee’s recommendation to approve scenario three overhead, based on net operating surplus, to submit to ALA Treasurer Peter Hepburn and ALA CFO Dina Tsourdinis, so that they can make a final overhead recommendation to the ALA Executive Board.
- Approved the ACRL Budget & Finance Committee’s recommendation to approve FY25 budget as below:
- ACRL Revenues $4,366,745
- ACRL Expenses $4,411,489
- ACRL Net -$44,744
- Choice Revenues $2,291,366
- Choice Expenses $2,210,679
- Choice Net $80,687
- Retired the ACRL Women and Gender Studies Section’s (WGSS) Award for Career Achievement in Women and Gender Studies Librarianship and Award for Significant Achievement in Women and Gender Studies Librarianship, starting with the 2025-2026 program year.
- Approved the following process documents from the ACRL Awards Coordinating Committee:
- Review Process for ACRL Awards in Spring 2025
- Guidelines for Avoiding Implicit Bias in ACRL Awards
- Data Collection for Awards
Article Views (By Year/Month)
| 2025 |
| January: 0 |
| February: 0 |
| March: 0 |
| April: 0 |
| May: 0 |
| June: 0 |
| July: 0 |
| August: 0 |
| September: 197 |
| October: 67 |
| November: 84 |
| December: 56 |