Long-time Barrington Area Library Trustee Richard J. Ryan has been awarded the ALA Trustee Citation by the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

The ALA Trustee Citation, established in 1941 to recognize public library Trustees for distinguished service to library development, honors the best contributions and efforts of the estimated 60,000 American citizens who serve on library boards. Ryan is one of two recipients this year.

Ryan has served as a Trustee of the Barrington (Ill.) Area Library for a total of 33 years. He served as board treasurer from 1974 to 1980 and board president for 25 years from 1985 to 2010. He is currently fulfilling a six-year term that ends in 2015. Even before he was elected to the board in 1974, he served on the Barrington Area Development Council’s ad hoc library committee and acted as co-chair of the library coordinating committee for publicity. In 1991, the library broke ground on a 31,000-square-foot addition and renovation project for the library he had help to build in 1978. Ryan is now working with the Board of Trustees and library administration on a planned renovation of the library building.

A statement of support submitted to ALTAFF by current Library Board President Don Minner praised Ryan for his persistence in seeing projects through to completion, his tirelessness in advocating for the library within the community, and his openness to new ideas and services within the library. In 2011, Minner and the other trustees bestowed upon Ryan the honorary title of President Emeritus. Executive Director Detlev Pansch notes that Ryan is both an engaged board member and enthusiastic library user, checking out materials several times a week, greeting staff members by name and often attending monthly staff meetings to acknowledge service milestones of longtime employees. As Minner stated to ALTAFF, “Richard J. Ryan’s decades of work on behalf of the Barrington Area Library can be seen and felt in every part of the building and its grounds, and experienced in all of its collections and services.”

Recipients of the ALA Trustee Citation will be announced at the Opening General Session of the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif, on Friday, June 22, 2012. More information about the ALA Trustee Citation is available on the ALTAFF Web site: http://www.ala.org/altaff/grants_awards/trustees/trusteecitation