Members – Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA)

Call for Officers: CALA Southeast Chapter, 2026-2027 Term

Dear CALA colleagues,

The CALA Southeast (SE) Chapter invites applications for officer positions for the 2026-2027 term. This is a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the Chapter’s growth, support professional engagement across the Southeast region, and collaborate with CALA colleagues at both the regional and national levels.

We are seeking candidates for the following positions:

Vice President, 2026-2027: To assist the Chapter President in the overall management of the Chapter activities. The Vice President will assume the role of Chapter President for the 2027-2028 term.
Secretary/Treasurer, 2026-2027: Serving as information and communication manager for the Chapter President, taking meeting minutes, organizing and maintaining the Chapter’s Google Drive, and communicating with the CALA Treasurer.
Membership Officer, 2026-2027: Keeping up-to-date membership records for the Chapter and recruiting new members in the region.

Eligibility:

A current CALA member who works/studies, or will work/study, in the following states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
No prior leadership experience is required.
MLIS or PhD students are welcome to apply.

Application process:

Please submit your application by July 13th to Wanheng Li, the current SE Chapter President (wanheng.li@vanderbilt.edu)
What to include in your application: Your name, affiliation, CALA membership status, position or interest, and a brief statement of interest (100-150 words)
A Chapter election may be conducted if we have multiple candidates for a position

Your service is important to our Chapter’s thriving, as we have many ongoing initiatives and are working to better serve our Chapter members. Officers are expected to actively contribute to Chapter activities, including the annual CALA Southeast & Southwest Chapters Joint Conference. In addition, the SE Chapter is currently collaborating with the Southwest Chapter on a CALASYS Grant Project, rebuilding our Chapter website, and exploring more opportunities for online and in-person events and cross-chapter/association collaboration.

Serving as a Chapter officer provides valuable opportunities, especially for earlier career professionals and library school students, to engage in event planning, expand your professional network, and contribute to a healthy and sustainable community for Chinese American librarians. The Chapter President and Vice President are also eligible for a $1,000 travel grant to attend the ALA Annual Conference.

We look forward to welcoming new officers and working together to strengthen the CALA SE Chapter. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Best,
Yi Wan

On behalf of CALA Southeast Chapter Officers

Wanheng Li, President, 2026-2027
Evie Wang, Webmaster, 2026-2027
Yi Wan, Immediate Past President, 2026-2027

CALA Member Dr Lee was awarded the Medal of Appreciation by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand

This past April, CALA member Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, was awarded the Medal of Appreciation by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand for his role both as the founding library director and as a member of the International Advisory Committee in the rebuilding of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) library after it was damaged by a devastating flooding which effected about two-third of the country in 2011. The entire AIT campus, including its library, was inundated under 6 ft. of water for about two months and most of the library collections were damaged.

Dr. Lee was the founding director of the AIT Library and Regional Information Center in Thailand from 1968 to 1975. It was exactly 50 years ago Dr. Lee was recruited by the U.S. Agency for International Development to join a team of 12 American engineering professors and administrative professionals traveling to Bangkok, Thailand for establishing the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), a regional graduate school of engineering and technology. The project was an international initiative in which countries around the world joined forces to successfully establish such a graduate school in Asia.

In 2014, Dr. Lee was invited by AIT President, Dr. Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai, to serve on the International Advisory Committee for the Library Modernization Project under the honorary chair, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand. The committee headed the fundraising initiative to rebuild the AIT library.

In acknowledgement of the highly successful international fundraising efforts and his advisory role in the design of the modernized library, Dr. Lee was recognized at the opening of the renovated AIT library on April 27, 2018.

From his legacy at the AIT Library to the many key library positions he held in the U.S., included 21 years as the dean of libraries at Ohio University, three years as the visiting distinguished scholar and consultant at OCLC, and five years as the chief of Asian division at the Library of Congress, Dr. Lee and his wife retired to Jacksonville, Florida in 2008. Dr. Lee has been a CALA member since 1975 and served as CALA president in 1978-79. In 2015, he was the first Asian American librarian to receive the Melvil Dewey Medal awarded by American Library Association.

Dr Lee was awarded the Medal of Appreciation by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand

Invitation to the CALA SE Program, Tour and Social @ ALA MidWinter

Dear CALA members and friends,

You’re cordially invited to the CALA Southeast Chapter spring program to be held in Atlanta on January 20, 2017, 12:30-5pm. The program will include several talks, a tour and digital map showcase of the Georgia State University’s Collaborative University Research & Visualization Environment and a social dinner. Please check out the details below.

Thank you and hope to see you in Atlanta!

CALA Southeast Chapter 2017 Spring Program

Sharing Your Professional Expertise and Your Library’s Collections

Visiting a Library, a Museum or a Cultural Institution in Atlanta

Time: January 20, 2017, 12:30-5:00 pm

Location: Georgia State University (GSU) Library Downtown Atlanta Campus

Meet at: GSU library North entrance

12:30-1:00 Virtual Reality Game Demo (If you can make it!!)

1:00-2:30pm Presentations and Member Meeting

Linked Data in the Library, Tongyang (Sunny) Zhang, University of Alabama

Librarians Work with Faculty to Support Their Teaching and Research (East Asian Studies Related at FSU), Yue Li, Florida State University Libraries

Experiment and Explore Data Services in Academic Libraries, Ximin Mi, Georgia State University (GSU) Library Downtown Atlanta Campus

Cataloging Games and Toys with RDA, Peng Mu, Samford University Library

Diving into the University Knowledge Community: Navigating the Expanded Role of the Metadata Librarian, Sai Deng, University of Central Florida Libraries

Practical Usage of WorldCat for Research and Publications: Challenges of Cataloging Asian-Language Resources, Garry Guan, Managing Editor of Chinese Cultural Relics

2:30-3:00pm Q & A

3:00-5:00pm Digital Map Projects Showcase @GSU CURVE (Collaborative University Research & Visualization Environment)

5:00-7:00pm Social Time and Dinner

If interested, you are welcome to join us for dinner in the Golden House Chinese Restaurant (金源大酒楼, 1600 Pleasant hill Rd, Duluth, GA 30096)

Program Online Access Instruction: Download WebEx app to your computer or smart phone; open WebEx, “Join Meeting”, put in the meeting number: 737 984 358, and your personal information. The password is cala.

Or, send your email to Ximin Mi at ximinmi@gmail.com, she will add you to the WebEx meeting invited attendee list, and then you should be able to log in by following the link below: https://gsumeetings.webex.com/gsumeetings/j.php?MTID=m3c41a60687420024265a5367382f1fcf

CALA Southeast Chapter

Sai Deng, Ximin Mi, Yue Li, and Peng Mu