ABA Announces 2016 Board Election Results

The results of balloting by the bookstore members of the American Booksellers Association to elect four directors to serve on the ABA Board are now official.

Elected to three-year terms (2016–2019) as directors are Kris Kleindienst of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri; Chris Morrow of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York; Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Connecticut, and Savoy Bookshop in Westerly, Rhode Island; and Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, with two locations in the Seattle, Washington, area and a third scheduled to open soon. This will be the second three-year term on the Board for Philbrick and Sindelar, who will also begin his second year of a two-year term as ABA vice president/secretary.

Continuing on the 11-member Board will be ABA President Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah; John Evans of DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland, Larkspur, and Brentwood, California; Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Valerie B. Koehler, Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas; Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple Books in San Francisco, California; Matthew Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan; and Jonathon Welch of Talking Leaves … Books in Buffalo, New York.

Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books & Café in Wichita, Kansas, will be leaving the Board in May after serving two three-year terms as a director.

The Board of Directors transition will take place at meetings in conjunction with next month’s BookExpo America in Chicago. All ABA members are encouraged to attend the Annual Membership Meeting to be held on Thursday, May 12, from 4:15 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. in Room W183 at the McCormick Place convention center. The meeting agenda will include the formal announcement of ABA’s election results, reports from the president and CEO, a membership and financial update, and the opportunity for members to bring old and/or new business to the attention of the Board of Directors.

The Annual Membership Meeting will be preceded by ABA’s Town Hall meeting from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m., also in Room W183. The Town Hall provides booksellers with the opportunity to express their opinions and concerns and to share ideas with ABA Board members and staff in a less formal setting.

To provide an opportunity for as many members as possible to speak during the Town Hall, a sign-up sheet will be prominently displayed starting Wednesday morning, May 11, in the ABA Member Lounge (Meeting Room T100 on the trade show floor). Booksellers will be called upon to speak at the Town Hall in the order in which they sign up. Questions about the Town Hall and/or the Annual Membership meetings should be addressed to Membership and Marketing Officer Meg Smith.

ABA’s Consolidated Financial Statements (2015 and 2014) and Form 990 will be available to members in the Governance section of BookWeb prior to BEA; watch for an announcement in an upcoming edition of BTW.

Information about all of ABA’s programming at BEA is available here.