Brief Description: Public Relations Office Brochures and promotional announcements prepared by the Public Relations Office including "ALA Headquarters at Your Service" (1960), "ALA Headquarters of Service to You" (1964), National Library Week Publicity Books and Library Campaign Books (1977, 1980-94), and "Fact Sheets" (1975-76, 1978, 1982-83). The series also contains brochures, booklets, and flyers regarding ALA divisions and units, campaigns including "Read," "ALA Goal 2000," and "Library Advocacy Now!" (1995-96), clip art, National Library Week, and programs; publicity and planning information to coordinate with the broadcast "Heritage: Civilization & the Jews," a PBS documentary series (1984); and pamphlets for Batchelder, Edwards, Newbery, Caldecott, and King award-winning books, in addition to pamphlets related to recommended book lists for children, young adults, and others. In addition, program guides and material related to different promotional campaigns are included, the most extensive of which are the "Solve Mysteries--Read" and "Together is Better" campaigns.

Record Series Number: 12/1/10

Created by: Public Information Office

Volume: 1.3 Cubic Feet

Acquired: 1/17/74; 7/80; 4/89; 6/00; 8/4/00; 12/15/99; 5/02

Arrangement: Chronological

Biographical Note for Public Information Office :

Recommendation was made in 1923 for a full time Headquarters staff appointment for publicity and broadened in 1929 to include information dissemination, both subsumed under a Publicity Department (1). Between 1930 and 1942, the Department, responsible to the Executive Director, acted under the supervision of the Publicity Committee (2). Thereafter, until 1973, this department became known as the Public Relations Division or Office, which also conducted the activities of the Department of Information and Advisory Services (3). As an outgrowth of this later department, the Public Information Office (PIO) first appeared in 1974 as part of "Other Services" (4).

The Public Information Office (PIO) was formed in th 1974 after a reorganization of the Public Relations and Membership Promotion Offices (5). In October 1974 the Executive Committee of the National Book Committee, Inc. voted to discontinue their library promotional effort, National Library Week (NLW), with the understanding that ALA would assume responsibility for NLW (6); PIO began functioning in 1975 when ALA inherited that responsibility (7).

The purpose of the Public Information Office is to maintain communication with the national and international press, providing information about ALA, its activities, and major developments affecting the library profession (8). "The responsibility for implementing national information programs . . . rests with the Public Information Office of the Association with support by the Public Relations (LAMA) Section and other appropriate groups" (9).

The Public Information Office is an ALA headquarters staff component (10). Its position has been changed from an original listing as "Other Services" (11) to a "Publishing Services" office (12), to a position as a Communications Services unit (13).

In 1980 the Office included a director and a publishing information officer (14); in 1983, the publishing information officer became public information officer, and the position of chapter relations officer was added (15).

"PIO produces a weekly review column "About Books" syndicated to more than 700 newspapers" (16) and, since 1982, a quarterly publication, Openers (17).

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