WSSU library director elected ALA president

Wanda Brown ‘77, the director of library services at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), has been elected the president-elect for the American Library Association (ALA).

Brown will become the chief elected officer for the oldest and largest library association in the world. She will serve as president-elect for one year before stepping into her role as president at the close of the 2019 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Brown will become the first ALA president who is a librarian at a historically Black college and university (HBCU) and the sixth African-American president.

Brown holds a bachelor’s in English with a minor in psychology from WSSU, and an MLS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Brown has more than three decades of comprehensive library experience. She was appointed director of library services for WSSU in 2016. Prior to her appointment, she was associate dean of Wake Forest University’s Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

She previously served as president of the North Carolina Library Association and President of the Black Caucus of the ALA. The ALA, founded in 1853, has more than 57,000 members worldwide. Read more about her election in the American Libraries Magazine.