ABA Announces 2003 Board of Directors Election Results

Suzanne Staubach	Gayle Shanks

ABA Board of Directors elections concluded on May 7 and were recently certified by the association's election inspector, KPMG. Candidates chosen by ABA bookstore members to serve as directors, with terms ending 2006, were: Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida; Suzanne Staubach of the UConn Co-op in Storrs, Connecticut; and Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. Kaplan and Staubach are currently members of the ABA Board, and Kaplan is concluding his first term as vice president/secretary.

Ann Christophersen	Mitchell Kaplan

ABA membership also ratified the Board's selection of ABA Board director Ann Christophersen of Women & Children First in Chicago for a second one-year term as president and Kaplan for a second one-year term as vice president/secretary.

Christophersen has been co-owner of Women & Children First, a store specializing in books by and about women, children's books for all ages, and events that bring writers and readers together, since 1979.

Kaplan established the first Books & Books in 1982 in Coral Gables; his second store opened in 1989 in Miami. Kaplan is also a founder of the Miami Book Fair International and is presently co-chair of its Board.

This will be the second three-year term as a Board director for Staubach, a bookseller for 22 years. She is manager of the General Books Division of the UConn Co-op, and is a past president of the New England Booksellers Association and the Connecticut Center for the Book.

Shanks, who is new to the ABA Board, has been a booksellers since 1974, when she and a friend opened a small used-book store, Changing Hands, in Tempe, Arizona. The store has grown from 500 square feet to 12,000 square feet, and now carries new and used books, remainders, and sidelines. Shanks is a past president of the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association.

The ABA Board is composed of nine booksellers who may serve for two three-year terms. Directors whose current terms end in 2004 are John Bennett of Bennett Books in Wyckoff, New Jersey; Ann Christophersen of Women & Children First in Chicago; and Carla Jimenez of Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida. Directors whose terms end in 2005 are Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California; Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana; and Karl Pohrt of Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. -- Rosemary Hawkins