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| Vuleta | |
Effective January 14, Andrea Vuleta is becoming executive director of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. Vuleta became a bookseller when she joined Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop in La Verne, Calif., in 2005, and most recently was store manager. Vuleta has also served on the SCIBA board for five years--two as president.
"I am very pleased and thrilled to have Andrea step into this position," said Jennifer Bigelow, who served as SCIBA's executive director for 13 years before resigning last month. Bigelow said that the organization is in good hands with Vuleta, who is "well known and well regarded in the industry."
"I'm excited," said Vuleta. "There are a lot of different challenges." Vuleta plans to work in a home office in Claremont, which is 35 miles east of Los Angeles, but said she hopes to spend one day a week visiting member (and potential member) stores. She also said she hopes to help SCIBA and its members have a much more physical and social media presence in the world of books, both within the industry and with the general public. "I want SCIBA to be the first thing people think of when they think of books [in Southern California]," she said.
Vuleta, who majored in chemistry, was an early and avid reader as a child and sees herself also as a tech geek, influenced by her mother, who was a computer programmer in the late 1960s. A frequent panelist at SCIBA and ABA educational programs, Vuleta said one of the first things she learned about bookselling is how to learn from other booksellers.
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| Bigelow | |
Bigelow, who did not even have an e-mail address when she joined SCIBA in 1998, helped her members respond to many changes in the marketplace. In the course of her tenure, she grew the association's annual fall dinner into what became known as the Authors Feast--which other regional associations have since adopted--in which writers spend an evening moving among tables of booksellers. Bigelow also expanded the fall event to include a trade show and led the SCIBA board to add three annual children's bookselling events to help fill the void when the Southern California Children's Booksellers Association disbanded. "We developed a children's book and literature program that brought together librarians, teachers, authors and booksellers and showcased what independent booksellers could do that big box and Amazon could not," Bigelow said.
Bigelow said she hopes to take the skills she learned while at SCIBA to continue making a difference in the world, most likely focused on children and education. --Bridget Kinsella