ABA Announces 2012 Election Results

The American Booksellers Association’s 2012 Board of Directors election results are now final. Elected by ABA’s bookstore members to serve three-year terms as directors are Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah; Valerie Koehler of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas; and Jonathon Welch of Talking Leaves…Books in Buffalo, New York.

Burton will be starting her second three-year term as an ABA Board member this June; for Koehler and Welch, this will be their first full three-year term. Koehler was appointed to the Board last spring to fill the vacancy created by the March 2011 Bylaws amendment, which made the presidency a separate and distinct position from the Board of Directors. Welch will fill the seat vacated by Beth Puffer, who retired last month from New York’s Bank Street Bookstore.

In June, Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshops in Naperville and Downers Grove, Illinois, and Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, will begin the second year of their two-year terms as ABA president and vice president, respectively.

Also continuing on the 10-member Board will be Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books & Café in Wichita, Kansas; Tom Campbell of The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina; John Evans of DIESEL, A Bookstore in Brentwood, Malibu, and Oakland, California; Matt Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan; and Ken White of SFSU Bookstore in San Francisco.

The Board of Directors and CEO Oren Teicher will report on the past year’s activities as well as upcoming initiatives at the association’s Annual Membership Meeting at BookExpo America. All ABA members are encouraged to attend the meeting to be held from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5, in Room 1E12/13 of the Javits Convention Center.

The Annual Meeting will be preceded by the Town Hall, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., also in Room 1E12/13. The Town Hall provides booksellers with the opportunity to express opinions and share ideas with the Board and staff in a less formal setting than the Membership Meeting.

To provide an opportunity for as many members as possible to speak during the Town Hall, a sign-up sheet will be prominently displayed in the ABA Booksellers Lounge (Room 1E07/08), starting on Monday morning, June 4. Booksellers will be called upon to speak at the Town Hall in the order in which they sign up.