ALAO and OCA (and other early history)
Updated July 11, 2012
Founded in 1867, the Ohio College Association (OCA) was a voluntary association of more than 80 of Ohio's private and public, two- and four-year non-profit colleges and universities. ALAO grew out of the College Librarians Section of OCA, which was established in 1947. At the same time, the College and Reference Division of the Ohio Library Association (OLA, now the Ohio Library Council) continued to exist, and academic librarians were involved in both organizations.
In May 1973, at the OLA Southwest Regional meeting, the Librarians Section of OCA met to consider "reorganization and rejuvenating" of the section [as described by Virginia Tiefel, first Vice-President of ALAO, in her paper "What is ALAO Anyway?"]. A committee chaired by Esther Greenberg of Case Western Reserve University began work to recommend organizational structure and goals. The committee's recommendations were presented at the October 1973 OLA Conference in Columbus, and the Academic Library Association of Ohio came into being at that time. The first constitution was approved by the membership in 1974. ALAO remained as a Section of the Ohio College Association, and OCA served as the ALAO fiduciary agent and keeper of the membership database. ALAO was granted recognition as the Ohio Chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ALA/ACRL) in 1981, while retaining its affiliation as a part OCA.
OCA reorganized in 2009, eliminating its office and managerial staff, which necessitated a dissolution of ALAO's affiliation as a Section of the OCA.
The Executive Board acknowledges with grateful thanks the many years of service provided by OCA to ALAO. Kathy Williams Wright and Joyce Harris Wright provided essential and efficient assistance in the form of bookkeeping, membership database management, auditing, a permanent mailing address and phone number, mail services, meeting coordination, and program planning. Their friendship, advice and guidance to the ALAO Executive Board is missed. --Alison Ricker, ALAO Secretary, July 2012.
