We are now accepting nominations for open spots on ABA’s Booksellers Advisory Council (BAC). The BAC serves as a sounding board and advisory council on issues facing the bookselling community and ABA.

Booksellers are invited to nominate themselves or another bookseller. [3]

Nominations are due by 11:59 pm ET on April 11, 2025.

Nominations will be reviewed that week by current BAC members [4]. Six new members, one each from SIBA, GLIBA, MIBA, PNBA, CALIBA and MPBIA will be selected to fill the empty seats.

The BAC serves an important role in ABA’s work. It has also proven to be a pipeline to the ABA Board. Eight current ABA Board members have served on the BAC: Tegan Tigani (Queen Anne Book Company), Jenny Cohen (Waucoma Bookstore), Diane Capriola (Little Shop of Stories), Holly Weinkauf (Red Balloon Books), Cynthia Compton (4 Kids Books & Toys, MacArthur Books), Jake Cumsky-Whitlock (Solid State Books), Jessica Stockton Bagnulo (Greenlight Bookstores), and Christina Pascucci Ciampa (All She Wrote Books).  

BAC members provide feedback about ABA programs and services as they are being developed; offer suggestions to help ABA improve programs and services to better serve bookselling communities; help identify and respond to emerging threats and opportunities related to antiracism, equity, representation, and access in the industry; bring concerns of booksellers and bookstore owners to the ABA staff and Board; and generally assist ABA.

The BAC is looking for individuals who represent different diverse identities. ABA is looking to create a committee as a whole that is representative of different types of individual diversity, as well as diversity of region, store size, and format.

A candidate for the BAC committee:

• Is a full-time bookseller or bookstore owner at an ABA member bookstore (any format or model)
• Has not served on the BAC before
• Does not currently serve on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DEIC) or the ABA Children’s Advisory Council
• Is able to meet the time obligation (see below) and serve for two years

Nominees will be informed of final decisions by Friday, April 18, 2025. The first BAC meeting with new members will take place on Wednesday, July 16, at 4:00 pm ET.

The BAC time commitment varies as outlined below:

• Input and/or participation in ABA’s Winter Institute and Children’s Institute
  • This includes offering feedback on programming and/or participating in a panel.
  • Comped in-person participation at Children’s Institute is determined annually based on the budget.
• Occasional attendance at prep or preview sessions for ABA programming with external speakers
• Occasional emails asking for feedback
• Four quarterly 60-minute Zoom meetings
• Potential in-person meeting once a year, in conjunction with a designated ABA event and paid for by ABA
  • When this occurs, it replaces one of the quarterly Zoom calls.

For more information about the committee, please reach out to the bookseller committee members collectively or individually [4], or contact ABA CEO Allison Hill [5] or COO Joy Dallanegra-Sanger [6].