Holly Smith is the College Archivist at Spelman College. She received a B.A. in History and Black Studies from William and Mary, an M.A. in History from Yale University, and an M.S. in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Management from Simmons College. She is passionate about community archives and archival advocacy related to collections for underrepresented groups. (From Atlanta Contemporary)

As a children’s librarian at Richland Library, Heather’s greatest joy is sharing wonderful, thrilling and inspiring stories with children and families. She is a proud early literacy advocate, parent educator and editor-in-chief for Kids in Print, Richland Library’s literary magazine. She also serves on the board of Richland First Steps and Read-a-Rama, a nonprofit bringing together children, teens and books with hands-on activities. She has been recognized as a 2015 Mover and Shaker by Library Journal, SCLA's Outstanding Librarian of the Year 2016 and was awarded the Peggy Parish Prize. In addition to her work in libraries, Heather is a theatre artist—a director, actor and playwright for The NiA Company. She was last seen onstage as Hansel in Whatchamacallit, April in Broken Fences and The Troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff, a show that she wrote as well. Throughout Heather’s life, her driving force is the utter belief in the power of people and stories to change lives, uncover the truth and bring communities together.

The makeup of our communities is changing. Immigrants continue to come to New York and other cities to find a better life, but suburbs and even rural areas have become destinations as well. Libraries, being the most democratic of our institutions, have always tried to meet the needs of the entire community. Many immigrants, however, come from countries without a public library tradition. The challenge is to understand their needs and find ways to make them aware of what an American public library can offer, as more and more libraries are becoming community centers. 

This presentation will focus on outreach to attract newcomers to the library. We’ll look at different means of promotion that have proven effective at Queens Public Library by focusing on the customer. There will be a brief overview of Queens’ immigrant population, which is the most ethnically diverse in the country, and highlight our outreach to specific ethnic communities. 

At New Americans Program we keep in mind two goals: 1) assisting immigrants to adjust to life in the US and 2) celebrating the many cultures around us and providing an opportunity for sharing them with the community-at-large.

Katie Dover-Taylor (she/her/hers) is currently a Librarian II at the William P. Faust Public Library in Westland, Michigan, where she provides reference, readers advisory, and technology assistance, coordinates technology training for adult learners, and serves as the chair of the library’s staff union. Over the past several years, Katie has approached social justice work in libraries through both community organizing and scholarship. In 2015, she was a founding co-coordinator of the Radical Libraries, Archives & Museums Track at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit. In 2017, she co-authored a chapter on white anti-racist librarianship for the book Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science. She is a member of the PLA Task Force on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice.

Barbara M. Jones is the retired Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, and Executive Director of the Freedom to Read Foundation at American Library Association. She holds a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Minnesota and an MLS in Library Service from Columbia University in New York City. She served on the FAIFE (Free Access to Information and Free Expression) at the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA). She traveled extensively around the world to hold FAIFE workshops on free expression, libraries and anti-corruption, libraries and HIV/AIDS information, and libraries and fake news. Before that, she was primarily and academic librarian, serving 4 times as a library director. She has written two books and several articles on the above topics. Currently she is working on a Podcast with CM Winters, about Information Poverty in the City of Chicago, that applies to all parts of the U.S.

Guest Lecture Slides: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WoKfYa7CaGCCh4pfQJAJuBWqgKlTNVZ8gdPERJrJork