Nominating Committee Procedures and Timeline

1.  Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the Executive Board and consist of no more than seven persons (representative of the diverse constituencies of ILA and geographic regions in Illinois). See ILA Bylaws, Article IX, Section 3.

2.  The Nominating Committee is chaired by the immediate ILA past president. They are responsible for calling meetings and selecting nominees. The slate must be selected by January 5 each year.

3.  Each forum may submit to the Nominating Committee a list of up to three (3) of its members to be considered for nomination to the Executive Board. See ILA Bylaws, Article IX, Section 4.

4. In selecting candidates, the Nominating Committee will use a “pairing” system for board election to reflect the Illinois library community’s diverse constituencies. Our diverse constituencies include, but are not limited to racial and ethnic diversity, age, gender, sexual orientation, geographic diversity, type of library worker, and trustee representation. Pairing requires two candidates who reflect these diversities for each of the designated seats up for election. The board will always have at least one member representing academic librarianship, one representing special librarianship, one representing school librarianship, and one representing public libraries. The ILA presidency will be rotated with public librarians being limited to serving two out of any three years. According to ILA Bylaws, Article IX, Section 2, candidates must be personal members of the association at the time of nomination. In an effort to avoid a perceived conflict of interest, the nominating committee will not select any candidates that are:

  • Members of the current nominating committee.
  • Employed by the same library as ILA board members who would be serving concurrently with the candidate or other candidates.
    • Immediate family members of current ILA staff members, ILA board members who would be serving concurrently with the candidate, or other candidates.
      For the purposes of this section, immediate family members are defined as a mother, father, romantic partner, spouse, child, brother, sister, grandparent, grandchild, or any stepfamily member.

5.  The Nominating Committee shall report its slate of candidates to the membership in an association-wide communications channel at least 30 days prior to the opening of the election. 

6.  Nominations by petition must be received in the ILA office no later than March 1. 

7.  Chair of the Nominating Committee will secure biographical information (500 character maximum) from all candidates no later than March 5 and forward to the ILA staff liaison.

8.  Chair of the Nominating Committee works with staff liaison to prepare the ballot and biographical information for electronic distribution.

9.   Election polls open on April 1. Automated e-mail messages linking to online ballot go out.

10.  Reminder e-mail to members that have not yet voted are sent on April 15 and April 29.

11.  The Nominating Committee chair will arrange for counting ballots and determining of those elected in accordance with the bylaws. 

13.  The Nominating Committee will be responsible for notifying all candidates of election results by phone. In the event a candidate cannot be reached by phone after multiple attempts, the Nominating Committee may notify the candidate by email.

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