Southeastern Library Association

The Southeastern Library Association (SELA) is an organization that collaborates with different library associations within in the Southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

SELA works with members of state library associations who are also members of SELA. Every other year a Leadership Conference is convened in which officers, directors, state representatives, and other SELA leadership members meet up to discuss issues, such as the functionality of SELA and the Biennial Conference. For over sixty years SELA has been instrumental in influencing legislation and garnering foundation and federal funds to support regional library projects.

The association's accomplishments include the creation of two library surveys, the adoption of school library standards, the establishment of state library agencies, the founding of library schools, the sponsoring of workshops, and SELn, a regional research and professional journal that has received national recognition.

The idea for a southern library association was conceived in 1920 by a group of librarians on their way to an American Library Association meeting in Colorado Springs. Their idle conversation about the possibility of a regional library association evolved into a serious discussion about the advantages a regional library association might offer. After a meeting in early June the ALA sent out letters to leading southern librarians describing the proposed meeting and asking for criticism, suggestions, and support. Once the responses to the preliminary letters were received, invitations to the first meeting were dispatched. The first regional meeting took place in Signal Mountain, Tennessee on November 12 and 13, 1920 with an attendance of approximately one hundred librarians from seven states. This meeting was originally called the Southeastern Library Conference; its purpose was to address the general, professional issues concerning information professionals at the time rather than topics on administration and technique. The success of the first meeting prompted conference leaders to schedule another meeting for November 1922.Library Journal, edited by Melvil Dewey, reported that the association was officially founded at the November 1922 meeting, and the journal published the association's proposed constitution. During the 1922 meetings attendees addressed several key issues, such as, the provision of library services, the establishment of training facilities for African Americans, and the adoption of a new constitution that provided an informal organization based upon state membership (automatically making members of state library organizations SELA members). In addition, librarians Mary Utopia Rothrock, of the Lawson McGhee Library in Knoxville, and Charlotte Templeton, of the Greenville Public Library, were elected the first president and secretary-treasurer of the association. During the 1924 Asheville Conference, nine states- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia- ratified the constitution. The April 1926 Signal Mountain Conference established goals to improve library services over a ten-year period, including the negotiation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools regarding standards for school libraries and institutions offering courses on school librarianship. On the final conference of the decade, the 1928 conference in Biloxi, substantial progress was made in providing services to minorities, establishing standards, and setting up state library agencies; and in 1929 the Policy Committee prepared a special report citing critical needs for the Southeast to be submitted to their national foundations at their January 1930 meetings.

...
Wikipedia