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Candidate_Perez-2022

Ziba Perez, Los Angeles Public Library

Candidate for ALA-Chapter-Councilor

Candidates for President-Elect

Candidates for Treasurer

Candidates for Director At-large (3 positions open)

Candidate for Student Representative

Candiate for ALA Chapter Councilor 

 

 
Ziba Perez

Biography

Hello, my name is Ziba Pérez and I’ve worked with the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) as a Young Adult Librarian since 2017. Previous to that I worked for the Long Beach Public Library (LBPL) as a Senior Librarian. I am a zine enthusiast and helped create a circulating zine collection at LBPL as well as LAPL. For four years I helped organize Long Beach Zine Fest and am currently helping to organize L.A. Zine Fest 2023. As a member of the California Library Association, I co-chaired the 2022 Beatty Award committee which had the pleasure of awarding our first YA Award in Literature to Malinda Lo for Last Night at the Telegraph Club. I am also an active member of the Los Angeles Chapter of REFORMA.

Candidate Statement:

Leadership to me means stepping up and taking the lead. I am interested in this position because I would like to step up for libraries in California and represent them at the American Library Association as the ALA Chapter Councilor. My personal leadership communication style is bold and attentive. I would bring my strengths of creativity, enthusiasm and attention to detail to this position. I joined the California Library Association after attending my first CLA conference in my hometown of Long Beach, California in 2013 just one year after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with my MS in Library and Information Science. During the last few years with CLA, I’ve been most active with the CLA Beatty Award Committee. I was a voting member of the California Beatty book award committee in 2021 when it was virtual and co-chair of the committee in 2022 when we returned to in-person celebrations. The CLA Beatty Award annually celebrates a children’s book author and a young adult’s book author that best represents California and its people. Equity, diversity and inclusion particularly inform my work. These issues come to mind in all aspects of libraries but especially with the ongoing issue of the freedom to read challenged books. School libraries, public libraries and even academic libraries throughout our nation deal with difficult challenges to materials held within their institution. Young adults and children need to be allowed access to diverse materials in libraries because reading about differences and other points of view from our own helps us understand and learn to be empathetic. One particular leader that interests me is Dolores Huerta. I admire the activism Dolores Huerta has done and continues to do for civil rights and labor. This is why I have served on the executive board of our library’s union for the past three years. Libraries need to be in communication regionally and statewide with stakeholders of all types everywhere as much as possible. Library advocacy is a daily task with friends and family members. We all need to do our part and help local politicians understand the value libraries offer our state and our nation every day.