Vande Haar Earns Iowa Library Association Honors

The district’s library coordinator, Dr. Dale Vande Haar, was named Member of the Year for his service to the Iowa Library Association.

Congratulations to Dr. Dale Vande Haar, DMPS District Library Coordinator, on his recent selection as Member of the Year by the Iowa Library Association (ILA) at the association’s yearly conference.

Dr. Vande Haar served an unprecedented two terms as the association’s president, where he led the reorganization of the association and also guided the merger of the seven former Iowa Library Service Areas into the State Library of Iowa, providing Iowans with a single, efficient statewide library service provider.  His leadership in the Iowa library community was also recognized two years ago when Governor Terry Brandstad made Dr. Vande Haar the first teacher-librarian appointed to the Iowa Commission of Libraries.

Dr. Vande Haar came to the district in 1992 after teaching high school English for 18 years at SE Polk High School where he is a graduate.  He has been the district’s library coordinator for 16 years and also served for two years as a teacher-librarian at East High School. Prior to that he served five years as a teacher-librarian at Hoyt Middle School, where he authored the winning proposal to make Hoyt the district’s first secondary technology demonstration school, which brought Internet connectivity via fully networked IBM computers throughout the building. He automated Hoyt’s library and worked with the DMPS Technology Department to create a small closed circuit television studio in the library for students to use.

In 2008, on the occasion of the school district’s centennial, Dr. Vande Haar also researched and compiled “A Brief History of the Des Moines Independent Community School District upon its One Hundredth Anniversary,” which can be found by clicking here.

Dr. Vande Haar will retire from DMPS in June of 2016.