Did Barack Obama Get His Start with Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations?

In a recent issue of NY Daily News, Barack Obama gives
credit to a library resource that lists organization names as the way he
eventually found his community organizing job in Chicago. The article quotes Barack Obama as saying:
"The Mid-Manhattan Library had these books of lists of organizations, and
the librarian helped me find these lists of organizations, and I wrote to every
organization. One of them wound up being an organization in Chicago that I got
a job with." To read the full
article click here.

We strongly suspect that the directory that the librarian
shared with Barack Obama must have been Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations:
National Organizations of the U.S. which is the only comprehensive source for
detailed information on nonprofit American membership organizations of national
scope.

The power of Gale’s directories are far-reaching, and
even more so than ever when you purchase digital versions that reside on our
new Gale Directory Library platform. Gale Directory Library allows you to cross-search multiple directories
as precisely as needed and allows you to export the data you retrieve into
programs like Excel for further analysis or to generate mailing lists.

Barack Obama’s first job in Chicago was found using
directory content and that first job positioned him for success – so much so
that he was elected President of the United States.

We want to know how Gale’s directories have helped you
succeed. Maybe you found your first job
using Ward’s Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies, or
perhaps you were awarded a scholarship from a source that you found in our
Scholarships, Fellowships & Loans title.

If you have a story about how our directory information
has influenced your life, blog about it here on The Sizzle.