The Southeastern Library Association (SELA) is an organization that collaborates with different library associations within the Southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
[1] For over sixty years SELA has been instrumental in influencing legislation and garnering foundation and federal funds to support regional library projects.
[7] 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.
[9] 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).
[8] 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.
[10] During the 1938 Atlanta conference discussions were held on federal and state aid; librarians began to recognize the importance of obtaining government funding for library development and they were willing to seek it.
[11] The reports of these two committees were approved during the 1948 Louisville conference, and they also provided for annual meetings, a headquarters office, a full-time executive secretary, and a quarterly journal.
[12] In 1952, then president Louis Shores appointed the first Southern Books Competition Committee, which; to this day, remains to be a major project for SELA.
[12] Cataloging practices in small libraries were also surveyed during that year at the Atlanta Conference; and, in fact, the meeting concluded the first biennium as an incorporated organization.
[13] In 1967 a workshop on Interlibrary Loan Cooperation was held to assist in the implementation of Title III of the Library Services and Construction Act.
[14][15] To implement the recommendations from the survey Dr. Mary Edna Anders, of the Industrial Development Division at Georgia Tech, was appointed part-time interim Executive Director of SELA, and during her six-month tenure detailed planning for the headquarters, including funding, was accomplished.
[3] Also, in observance of the twenty-fifth anniversary of SELA's Southern Books Competition, the association published a list of award winners from 1952 to 1977.
[16] In 1980, the association honored Virginia Lacy Jones, one of the first African-Americans to earn their PhD in Library Science, with the Mary Rothrock award.
SELA associates were focusing on preparations for the 1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Science; the second national gathering of librarians and advocates.
[20] In the Spring of 1996, then SELA president Joe Forsee appointed a committee to study the future directions of the Southeastern Library Association.
[18] After the September 11, 2001 attacks libraries faced new intellectual freedom challenges caused by the U.S. Patriot Act and other restrictive legislation.
[21] As a result, SELA was forced to adapt, for instance, much of the committee work; which was performed through conference calls and correspondence; was transferred to electronic discussions, and emphasis was placed on the expansion of the SELA website, in fact, the site was hosted by a variety of organizations and institutions, such as, the Southeast Florida Library Information Network (SEFLIN), The University of Central Florida, and Austin Peay University.
[21] In 2002 the Ginny Frankenthaler Memorial Scholarship was created to provide financial assistance toward completion of a graduate degree in library science.