Leading. Partnering. Connecting. The Amigos Member Conference 2024 - Speakers
Keynote Speaker: Roosevelt Weeks - Austin Public Library - roosevelt.weeks@austintexas.gov
Session Time: 10:10 am - 11:00 am CDT
Session Title: Opening Keynote - Empowering Libraries: Strategies for Talent Development, Collection Enhancement, and Community Engagement
Session Description: Libraries are evolving spaces that require dynamic approaches to recruitment, succession planning, and skill development, all while navigating the changing landscape of collection development and fostering community partnerships.
Speaker Bio: Roosevelt Weeks has been the Director of the Austin Public Library since 2017, where he leads a dynamic library system of 20 branch locations, the History Center and a new Central Library. Just this year, Weeks was honored with the Texas Library Association’s 2023 Librarian of the Year award. In June of 2023 the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) announced his election as the new Board of Directors Chair.
Prior to joining the Austin Public Library, Weeks was the Deputy Director and Chief of Staff at the Houston Public Library for over 10 years. He had previously acted as the City of Houston’s Chief Technology Officer. These roles clearly demonstrate Week’s passion for improving technology, literacy and education — both inside and outside of the library.
Speaker: Christine Peterson - Amigos Library Services - peterson@amigos.org
Speaker: Valerie Nye - Santa Fe Community College - valerie.nye@sfcc.edu
Session Time: 12:45 pm - 1:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Exploring Samvera's Hyku: A Year in Review with Amigos Libraries
Session Description: Join for a compelling session that delves into Samvera's Hyku, an open-source institutional repository (IR) specifically designed for the unique needs of small- to medium-sized academic libraries. This turn-key solution offers functionality critical to managing an IR, including collection management, object handling, access controls, data import/export, deposit methods, and customization options. Built on Hyrax, Hyku benefits from a strong development community.
This session will also provide Valerie Nye, Santa Fe Community College library director and one of the librarian testers, and explore the potential interest in this service among our members. Don't miss the chance to see how Hyku could fit into your institution's data management services.
Speaker: Jeanette Pierce - University of Missouri Libraries - piercejea@missouri.edu
Speaker: Navadeep Khanal - University of Missouri Libraries - khanaln@missouri.edu
Session Time: 12:45 pm - 1:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Leveraging Campus Referral Platforms in Libraries
Session Description: In an ever-evolving educational landscape, fostering meaningful connections between students, faculty, and support services is paramount. Like many campuses, the University of Missouri uses a referral system to support student success on campus. These systems help campuses connect students to services, usually advising, tutoring, or mental health support. The University of Missouri Libraries (MU Libraries) have implemented multiple integrations with its campus referral system called MU Connect. This session will explore MU Libraries’ use of MU Connect to enhance student experiences and contribute to student success by connecting them with library services.
Speaker Bio: Jeannette Pierce is Associate University Librarian for Research, Access, and Instructional Services and Interim Associate University Librarian for University Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Services for MU Libraries. Before joining MU libraries in 2013, Pierce held positions at Loyola University Chicago, Johns Hopkins University and Saint Louis University. Pierce is an active member of numerous professional organizations, including the Association of College and Research Libraries. In 2014, she was selected to attend Harvard’s Library Leadership in the Digital Age program and she is a recent alumnus of the Association of Research Libraries' Leadership Fellows Program. Pierce holds a Master of Science in Library and Information Science and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master of Science in History from Saint Louis University.
Speaker Bio: Navadeep Khanal is the Head of the Teaching & Learning Department, and Web Development Administrator at the University of Missouri Libraries (MU Libraries), leading the libraries' efforts to ensure that distributed students of the university and online users of the library have high-quality access to library instruction and services. Navadeep works collaboratively with librarians, instructors and other units on campus, to ensure students succeed in their academic endeavor by having access to library resources, learning modules, tutorials and videos within their courses or as independent learners.
Speaker: Aubrey Naiman - Tulsa City-County Library - aubrey.naiman@tulsalibrary.org
Session Time: 12:45 pm - 1:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Expand Your Business: Tulsa City-County Library's Grow Academy
Session Description: I will discuss the why behind what we're doing, explain the program and the partnerships that have come with it, and explain how I plan on changing the syllabus for the future cohorts now that we're halfway through our second one and have ideas on how to improve it. If there's time, I also want to talk about what it's like to start a job that has a program like this already running and how passing off a program can work.
Speaker Bio: Aubrey is the Economic and Community Development Librarian at the Tulsa City-County Library system's Central Library Research Center, where she works creating programming for local entrepreneurs while building relationships within the Tulsa entrepreneurial ecosystem. A large part of her job includes Grow Academy: a program to help entrepreneurs expand their businesses, whether they have an idea or an established business. She has an MA in English from the University of Tulsa and a MLIS and Archival Studies Graduate Certificate from the University of Oklahoma.
Speaker: Margaret Dawson - Texas A&M University-Central Texas - madawson@tamuct.edu
Speaker: Michelle Shea - Texas A&M University-Central Texas - m.shea@tamuct.edu
Speaker: Kelley Williams - Texas A&M University-Central Texas - k.williams@tamuct.edu
Session Time: 1:45 pm - 2:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Collaborative Programming Building Community on Campus and Beyond
Session Description: Academic libraries are a connective element across campus departments, but they also collaborate with community partners to plan and build programs that appeal to college students, members of the public, and school-age audiences. Being an academic library/academic librarian involves more than just providing information, digital, and media literacy guidance and instruction.
On campus, program options include multi-department scavenger hunts, book clubs, author talks, and welcome weeks for new students. The library can initiate these events by planning questions and pathways, providing meeting spaces, and offering support to build campus culture. Librarians can distribute tasks, solicit input, and utilize deadlines, while also keeping track of resources (which can be people or materials).
Beyond colleges and universities, there are opportunities to work with school districts and libraries, such as through summer camps, tutoring programs, visits to K-12 schools, and lessons on our campus for young learners. These types of programs can be planned with feedback from teachers and school librarians and be aligned with state education standards.
Finally, collaborative programs with public libraries can foster lifelong learning through programming such as makerspaces, information literacy and summer reading support. Working with different entities that have unique or conflicting visions for the final program can result in a complex planning process, so it is important to set up good communication patterns early and often for greater success.
Speaker Bio: Margaret Dawson, MA, MLS has spent 23 years working in academic and joint-use libraries. From 2014 to 2021, she worked at Texas A&M University-Central Texas in Killeen, Texas as an Outreach and Instruction Librarian, and has developed programs for university students, their children, and the general public. She is currently the Co-Head of Public Services and Outreach at TAMUCT.
Speaker Bio: Michelle Shea, MLS, M.Ed., is an Education and Reference Librarian at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. She assists with academic research, coordinates children’s programming, and collaborates as a library liaison. She has written about and conducted presentations on student-centered services, library instruction, and community connections.
Speaker Bio: Kelly Williams earned a Master of Science in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University-Central Texas and a Master of Science in Library Science from the University of North Texas. She's spent most of her library career working in the technical services departments of academic libraries but recently made a change to reference and instruction. She is currently a Reference and Instruction librarian at Texas A&M University-Central Texas.
Speaker: Karim Boughida - Stony Brook University - belkacemkarim.boughida@stonybrook.edu
Speaker: Todd Carpenter - National Information Standards Organization (NISO) - tcarpenter@niso.org
Speaker: Mary Beth Barilla - National Information Standards Organization (NISO) - mbarilla@niso.org
Session Time: 1:45 pm - 2:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Community, Leadership, and Growth: Two Strategic Plans in the Information Community
Session Description: Join members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) team, including board chair Karim Boughida (Dean, Stony Brook University Libraries), as they share highlights from their respective organizations' strategic plans. Along the way they'll cover some of the core elements of successful strategic planning (e.g., development, implementation, and assessment). Attendees will come away with not only an understanding of NISO’s 2024–26 goals, but also ideas and examples they can apply in their own strategic planning.
Speaker Bio: Karim Boughida was appointed dean of Stony Brook University Libraries effective September 15, 2022.
Boughida is an internationally regarded leader in data and library/information science. He is a frequently invited speaker for national and international conferences and seminars, and serves on several boards. This includes the board of directors for the Boston Library Consortium; the board of NISO (National Information Standards Organization), for which he was elected vice chair; and editorial boards for the International Journal on Digital Libraries and the Journal of the Special Libraries Association Arabian – Gulf Chapter.
Boughida's most recent role was dean of University Libraries at the University of Rhode Island since 2015. He led several campus-wide initiatives and strategic partnerships, including a makerspace, the first Artificial Intelligence lab in the world in a library, an XR (extended reality) lab, a launch lab for innovation and entrepreneurship, the acquisition and development of Dataspark as a data analytics unit, and the coordination and establishment of data science teaching and research programs. He also expanded engagement with regional and national organizations, including the Boston Library Consortium, HathiTrust, OCLC Research Library Partnership and the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation. Previous roles include associate university librarian for digital initiatives and technical services at George Washington University, and senior information systems architect at Getty Research Institute Library.
Boughida holds a master's degree in library and information science from the University of Montreal, and a bachelor's degree in library science from the University of Constantine in Algeria. He is fluent in English, Arabic and French.
Speaker Bio: Todd Carpenter currently serves as Executive Director of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), a non-profit association that develops and maintains standards for the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information. In this role, he works with organizations across the publishing, library and software provider communities, building coalitions to improve efficiency in systems to deliver content to users. Prior to joining NISO, Todd was Director of Business Development at BioOne. He also held management positions at The Johns Hopkins University Press, the Energy Intelligence Group, and the Haworth Press. He has served on the Boards of several industry and community organizations, including FORCE11, the Baltimore County Public Library, the Book Industry Study Group and the Society for Scholarly Publishing. He contributes regularly as a Chef on the Scholarly Kitchen and is author of dozens of papers on library and publishing systems. Todd is a graduate of Syracuse University and holds a masters degree in business from the Johns Hopkins University.
Speaker Bio: Mary Beth Barilla is NISO's Director of Business Development and Communications, where she manages member communications and ensures NISO's sustainability through growth in membership, sponsorship, events, and other funding sources. Prior to joining NISO, Mary Beth worked at the Society for Scholarly Publishing as Program Director, where she led volunteers to develop educational programming for the scholarly communications community. She has also worked at RedLink, Inc. as the Publisher Relations Director and in sales and marketing roles at both commercial and university presses.
Speaker: Corey Christians - Yavapai County Free Library District - corey.christians@yavapaiaz.gov
Session Time: 1:45 pm - 2:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Leveraging partnerships and collaborations to push libraries forward
Session Description: The Yavapai County Free Library District went from obscurity to a state-wide leader by creating connections, developing partnerships, and leading the way. Learn how this model continues to benefit libraries, the patrons, and our communities.
Speaker Bio: TBDCorey Christians began his career in libraries in 1998 with the South Dakota Board of Regents where he provided technology support for 90 libraries throughout the State of South Dakota. Starting in 2002, he started a new career supporting, and later managing, the Yavapai Library Network (YLN), which is a consortium of public, academic, K-12, and special libraries. In 2017, he was appointed by the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors to be the County Librarian for Yavapai County and the Director of the Yavapai County Free Library District; a position which he currently holds. Currently, he serves on the Yavapai County Broadband Initiative team, the Board of Directors for the Yavapai County Education Technology Consortium, the Board of Directors for the Arizona Technology and Information Council, and the Board of Directors for AMIGOS Library Services. He has also served as an elected official on the Humboldt Unified School District Governing Board. He earned his BS from Black Hills State University in 1999 double-majoring in Political Science and Speech Communications. He then earned his MA in Library and Information Science from the University of Arizona in 2009. He resides in Prescott Valley, AZ with his wife, Heather, and three of their six children.
Speaker: Bea Ramirez - Amigos Library Services - ramirez@amigos.org
Speaker: Laurence Zuercher - Amigos Library Services - zuercher@amigos.org
Speaker: Sue Ellen Jackson - Nicholson Memorial Library System - sejackson@garlandtx.gov
Speaker: Carolina De Leon - Texas A&M University - cdeleon@tamu.edu
Session Time: 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Transform Shipping with the Trans-Amigos Express Label Maker
Speaker Bio: Laurence is a supervisor in the Member Discount Services (MDS) and Trans-Amigos Express (TAE) departments. With years of public library experience centered around the multi-service circulation desk, he brings excellent customer service and many skills to serve Amigos members and courier participants. Laurence helps Amigos Members utilize the Consortia Manager to renew access to databases offered through the MDS program and assists with courier issues. He earned his bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Arlington.
Speaker Bio: Sue Ellen has worked at the Nicholson Memorial Library System in Garland, Texas, since May 30, 2000. She began her library work in circulation, moving into Interlibrary Loan in 2006. She is also responsible for the serials collection for the Garland Libraries.
Speaker Bio: Carolina De Leon works in the Document Delivery Services department at the Texas A&M University Libraries.
Speaker: James Dodd - Tulsa Community College - mrjamesdodd@gmail.com
Speaker: Nancy Hu - Harris County Public Library - nancy.hu@hcpl.net
Speaker: Yuliana Aceves Nguyen - University of Texas at Arlington - yuliana.nguyen@uta.edu
Speaker: Gwendolyn Prellwitz - Amigos Library Services - prellwitz@amigos.org
Session Time: 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm CDT
Session Title: Teach with Amigos
Session Description: Share your knowledge through teaching with Amigos. Amigos’ Continuing Education Services (CES) coordinates a full schedule of online workshops, free Know & Go sessions for member libraries, popular Online Conferences, and customized by-request trainings for libraries and organizations. Amigos' instructors bring subject knowledge and practical experience to our extensive catalog of offerings. We provide technical support, instructor honorariums, and assistance with course development. Prior teaching experience is not required. We're looking for instructors who prioritize learner experience and are comfortable with online learning environments. Hear from recent instructors and learn more about opportunities to present through our wide variety of workshop formats.
Speaker Bio: James Dodd was born and raised in Oklahoma. He was a Pre-K teacher for 4.5 years, where his love for teaching developed unexpectedly. He began working in academic libraries in 2018. He is now the Cataloging & Metadata Librarian at Tulsa Community College, on the Metro Campus. He also serves as the backup to the Systems Librarian, and together they oversee the small Technical Services team. He began teaching for Amigos in January of this year and looks forward to continuing sharing his love for cataloging, and all things libraries, with others in the field.
Speaker Bio: Nancy Hu's passion thrives in crafting compelling visual stories. With a background in art direction, she noticed a growing demand for innovative storytelling in communication and marketing. Leveraging her diverse skill set, Nancy is now a driving force behind the Harris County Public Library's brand. Through creative campaigns, she illuminates the importance of literacy and the transformative power of libraries. By blending digital and print mediums, she hopes to spark engagement and foster connection with the local community.
Speaker Bio: Yuliana Aceves Nguyen is the K-12 Experiential Learning Librarian at the University of Texas at Arlington. She graduated from the University of North Texas with her MLIS degree in 2020. In 2022, she received the American Library Association’s I Love My Librarian Award for her extensive outreach and programming work with the youth in Arlington during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Currently, Yuliana works to bring K-12 students in the DFW area into the UT Arlington library to teach them about college, research, and library resources.