Te Rōpū Whakahau
Māori in Libraries and Information Management

"Te Rōpū Whakahau is the national association for all Māori working in libraries, archives and information management in Aotearoa New Zealand and we are honoured to provide a letter of support to Loriene Roy's candidacy for President of the American Library Association. We have known Loriene for at least six years through her leadership work in advocating and working towards free access to libraries for all patrons, freedom of expression and protection of privacy, equitable salaries and benefits for library workers, recruitment of new talent, including students of color, into schools of, library and information science, promoting library work and workers to the public at large and new training for library workers to meet changing patron needs. In particular. We have seen Loriene's committment and drive through her work in leading the establishment of the International Indigenous Librarian's Fora, as a speaker at numerous library conferences in Aotearoa and abroad, through the inclusion of one of our Māori schools into the 'If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything' reading programme and as an associate member of Te Rōpū Whakahau. Coupled with Loriene's leadership, integrity and sincerity and compassion for the library profession and its people, we believe Loriene will make an ideal candidate for the American Library Association (ALA) presidency."

-David Kukutai Jones