Honoring Mario Ascencio, SCELC's First Latino Board Chair

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we want to shine a much-deserved spotlight on SCELC community leader-- and dear friend-- Mario Ascencio! On top of his duties heading the library at SCELC Member institution ArtCenter College of Design, Mario serves as SCELC’s first Latino Board Chair.

Mario was elected to SCELC’s Board of Directors in 2016, where he has steadfastly applied his leadership experience and inclusive perspective on librarianship towards the betterment of the entire consortium. In 2021, the Board of Directors elected Mario to begin a leadership track for the group, and this year, he stepped into the position of Chair.

SCELC prides itself on its institutional diversity, composed of Members and Affiliates ranging the entire spectrum of the academic library landscape, but it is also a pleasure to have this opportunity to highlight the diversity of integral individuals like Mario in our consortial community.

Official Bio

Mario Ascencio is not only a first-generation college student, but a first-generation library user who has worked in libraries for 34 years. He currently serves as the College Librarian and Managing Director at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Regionally, Mario is currently serving as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), a consortium of private not-for-profit college libraries interested in licensing online resources. His work with SCELC includes serving on the Handbook Task Force, the Search Committee for the Executive Director position, the Strategic Planning Committee, and the Membership Committee. At the national level, he has participated and led advocacy efforts for American libraries. At the international level, he has presented lectures, keynote addresses, workshops, webcasts, and media interviews in Argentina, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay for the United States Department of State.

Deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), he recently completed serving as Co-Chair of Art Center’s DEI Council. He is a member of the American Indian Library Association and the Rainbow Roundtable of the American Library Association. In addition, he is a life-member of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), the Black Caucus of ALA (BCALA), and REFORMA - The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. In 2007-08, he had the honor of serving as president of REFORMA. He is also a member of ACRL, ALA, and ARLIS.

Mario received his BA in art history and minor in Italian from CSUN, which he completed in Florence, Italy. He holds an MLIS from UCLA. He is a cohort participant of the 2016 UCLA Library Senior Fellows program and the 2007 ALA Emerging Leaders program. In 2008, he served as a member of the Honorary Committee for the UCLA Library & Information Studies 50-Year Celebration and was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker that same year.