Presenters

Aiden Bettine is the Curator of the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries Archives and Special Collections. He is an archivist and public historian who researches and teaches local history pertaining to race, gender, and sexuality in the Midwest. Aiden holds an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Public History and Archival Science and Master’s degrees in both Library and Information Sciences and Critical Ethnic Studies. His dissertation, "To Collect Our Own Histories: Community Archiving in the Lesbian and Gay History Movement," explores the role of community archives building in the grassroots history movement that flourished as a form of activism in Gay Liberation, centering the history of Gerber/Hart Library and Archives in Chicago.

I took my Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in 1991. I had a postdoc at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen from 1992-1996, but then had to change direction and took my MLIS at Western University in 1998. I have worked in digital librarianship since then, for the last 25 years at the University of Alberta. In the early 2000s I began researching the career and thought of my grandfather Robert C. Binkley in the family collection of his personal papers and subsequently in the papers of the Joint Committee on Materials for Research in the Library of Congress and other collections. 

Doug Campbell is the Humanities, Journalism, & Social Sciences Librarian at the University of North Texas. He is a subject specialist for the areas of history, philosophy & religion, journalism, economics, and international studies. His research interests include history of U.S. libraries and librarianship, global literature in translation, library instruction and information literacy, and academic librarian workload assessment. He lives in Denton, Texas with two cats and a dog. 

jaime ding would like to live up to the idea of an anti-imperial historian. She has learned from trash and cleanliness, reality tv and revolutionaries, studio art and digital projects; and has worked in waste management, museum education, academic libraries, corporate archives, and for just a paycheck. 

Mark W. Duncan is a Research and Instruction Librarian at University of South Carolina. His library history research explores the historical roles of shipboard libraries in both military and merchant marine contexts. He also researches and practices information literacy instruction, library outreach, and research support. 

Laura French is a librarian and archivist specializing in the areas of rare books and literary collections at the Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University. Her current research interests are in the history and development of special collection libraries. Her professional focus is on ways to increase discovery of and access to cultural heritage collections.

Sasha Frizzell is the Interim Assistant Director for Cataloging and Metadata at Binghamton University. Their research interests include reparative description and alternative classification systems.

Julie Marie Frye is an Assistant Professor at Appalachian State University, a librarian, and an arts-based researcher whose work explores how libraries through creative practices and everyday encounters can repair civic fracture and strengthen social cohesion. Her scholarship bridges curriculum studies, librarianship, and the arts, with particular attention to the democratic potential of public spaces as sites where communities practice recognition and participation. Her scholarship has appeared in Library & Information Science Research and Library Trends. Frye is a recipient of the I Love My Librarian Award, the Indiana University Latino Faculty & Staff Council Distinguished Award, and the Wells Graduate Fellowship for Visionary Leadership.

Ann Glusker recently retired as Social Sciences and Research Methods Librarian from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley she was able to develop experience and expertise as a qualitative researcher and oral historian. Her previous library positions were in medical, special, public and academic libraries, and before becoming a librarian she was a public health epidemiologist. Her library-related research has focused on data literacy, librarian career paths, and library morale, and she’s looking forward to further oral history involvement in future, along with finally getting to her TBR pile. 

Tom Glynn is the British and American History Librarian at Rutgers University- New Brunswick. He is the author of Reading Publics: New York City's Public Libraries, 1754-1911 (Fordam University Press, 2015), an Outstanding Academic Title in Choice. He has served as LHRT's Member-at-Large, Secretary-Treasurer, and Chair. 

Claudia Grisales is a doctoral candidate in Informatic at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He research asks: how can information institutions and communities navigate sociotechnical change in ways that expand collective wellbeing.

Tara Murray Grove is Associate Librarian for Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Penn State. She previously served as the Director of Information Services and Librarian for the American Philatelic Research Library in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the world’s largest library dedicated to stamp collecting and postal history, where she oversaw the renovation of new space for the library and developed the library’s first digital collections. She also previously served as the Information Core Director for Penn State’s Population Research Institute and has experience in public and corporate libraries. She has an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in German Studies from Bard College. Her research explores special libraries and international issues in librarianship and her work has been published in College & Research Libraries, College & Research Libraries News, Journal of Library Administration, and Libraries, Culture, History, and Society. 

Dr. S.E. Hackney is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Studies at Queens College, CUNY. His research examines the intersections of librarianship and the history of computing with regards to digital text and information processing, and he does extensive work with community groups around information privacy and surveillance. His teaching and pedagogical practice focuses on the ethics of information work, and the shifting relationships between workers, institutions, and the communities they serve. 

Sylvia Hernandez is a librarian and Certified Archivist, who manages outreach, instruction, and collection development at The Texas Collection, Baylor University. Her work centers on acquiring and promoting materials produced by underrepresented populations that have been historically left out of the collections. Her research interests revolve around archival silences, library history, and local history. Specifically her work explores the Mexican American Experience in Waco, Texas as she is a fifth generation Mexican American from Waco.

Nathan R. Johnson is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida. His research examines the history of information with a focus on how infrastructure and labor shape technological systems and integrates methodologies from science and technology studies (STS), critical information studies, and media studies. His first book, Architects of Memory, identifies key turning points during the 20th century when new mnemonic concepts were built into information science technologies and modern memory infrastructures gained traction. 

Bernadette A. Lear (she/her/Ms.) is an Education, Behavioral Sciences, and Social Sciences Librarian at Penn State. She earned her B.A. in History from The George Washington University (1997), her MLS from Rutgers (1999), and her M.A. in American Studies from Penn State Harrisburg (2012). A three-time Chair of LHRT, and a founding co-editor of its scholarly journal, Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, she continues to serve the roundtable, most recently on the Donald G. Davis Article Award Committee (2025-2026). Bernadette's research focuses on the history of public libraries in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public: Community Libraries in Pennsylvania from the Colonial Era through World War II (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021). Her blog, In Search of Pennsylvania Library History, provides fun and informative stories pertaining to her latest projects. 

Marguerite Ragnow earned her Ph.D. in History at the University of Minnesota, where she is curator of two collections: the James Ford Bell Library, and Special Collections and Rare Books. She is a Fellow of the Society for the History of Discoveries, for which she is also a past president and former editor of its peer-reviewed journal, Terrae Incognitae. She was one of the co-investigators in the Mellon-funded Consortium for the Study of the PreModern World; past treasurer of Mapping and Geospatial Roundtable of ALA; and one of the founders of the Institute for Advanced Study "Interrogating Archives" working group. Her 2019 book, Tulips, Chocolate, and Silk was a finalist for the 2020 MN Book Award and for the 2020 Midwest Book Awards.

Elizabeth Rivera, Ph.D., is a public historian, archivist, and librarian who served for eleven years at Lipscomb and Baylor Universities. She is the author of The Relational Archivist: Centering People which advances a people-centered approach to archival practice. Drawing on her background in psychology and “slow librarianship,” Rivera's work emphasizes shifting archival practices from transactional processing toward meaningful human connection. She earned her doctorate from Middle Tennessee State University and lives in Franklin, Tennessee. 

Lian Ruan is head librarian and director of international programs at the Illinois Fire Service Institute on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus since 1999. She leads the IFSI action-oriented research plan to better meet the diverse needs of library patrons at the local, state, national, and international levels.

I am a Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton. My research draws blends gender theories and critical studies of men and masculinities to conceptualise new methods for engaging with histories of information systems and computing. 

Mike Selby is an award-winning author, columnist, and a professional librarian. He has been a guest lecturer at universities across North America and South Africa, and has been interviewed by both NPR and The Washington Post. His book 'Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South', won the Academic Text of the Year (2020) from the Association of College and Research Libraries. His second book 'Who We Are: The 100 Year History of the Cranbrook Public Library' was lauded by Penn State--“this is how you write a history book,”--as well as the President of the American Library Association who called it “a humbling, staggering, yet in the end heartfelt story which we all should share in.” Mike also consulted on—and appears in—the documentary Are You a Librarian?—now nominated for best documentary of 2026 by the Pulling Focus Film Festival. 

Dr. Davu Underwood Seru is the Curator of the Givens Collection of African American Literature and Life at Elmer L. Andersen Library. He is co-author of the book Sights, Sounds, Soul: The Twin Cities Through the Lens of Charles Chamblis (MNHS Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the 2017 MN Book Award. He has published articles on literature, music, history and culture in American Book Review, The Waker Art Center online magazine MnArtist.org and the French jazz magazine Les Allumés du Jazz. He is currently working on a book project with the artist Seitu Ken Jones. In 2023, before leaving the English Department at Hamline University, where he had taught since 2011, Davu was awarded the Dr. Colleen S. Bell Outstanding Faculty Award. He continues to teach on- and off-campus and is an award-winning, internationally recognized musician and composer. 

Melissa Stewart has written more than 200 nonfiction books for children, garnering such awards as the Sibert Honor, AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books, eighteen NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students, two Green Earth Book Awards, and four ALA Notables. She’s a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Children’s Literature Assembly Board, co-wrote 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books, edited the anthology Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep: 50 Award-winning Authors Share the Secret of Engaging Writing, and contributed to the NCTE Nonfiction Position Statement. 

Rachel Trnka is a Learning Engagement Librarian at the University of Central Florida. Her research interests include information literacy instruction and library history. Her work has appeared in Library & Information History, the Journal of Academic Librarianship, and the New Review of Academic Librarianship. 

Veronica Alzalde Wells (she/her) is a Professor and Director of the Nicholas Erneston Music Library at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Previously, she was the Associate Dean for Learning in Research and Outreach & Public Services Librarian for Special Collections. Prior to joining App State, she was the Assistant Dean for User Services & Programs at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California where she was also the music liaison to the Conservatory of Music. Her research interests include critical information literacy and music librarianship. In 2018, she co-authored the reference work, Historical Dictionary of the American Music Industry. Veronica earned her MLIS and MA in Music at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. 

Kate Williams is an associate professor emerita in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research asks: Is community possible in the digital age? Part of this question is: What is the role of the public library in this process?

Alessia R. Zanin Yost is an Associate Professor whose research and professional interests span multiple areas of librarianship, including health information, information literacy, assessment, intercultural communication, international librarianship, and the history of libraries. Her scholarship explores how libraries support learning, access to information, and community well-being across diverse cultural and institutional contexts. She is particularly interested in the intersections between health and other disciplines, examining how health information connects with education, communication, technology, and social outcomes. She has presented and published on topics related to library assessment, user engagement, health sciences librarianship, international collaborations, and the development of information literacy practices. Through both research and teaching, she seeks to promote inclusive, evidence-based approaches to librarianship and to advance understanding of libraries as dynamic institutions that foster knowledge, cultural exchange, and lifelong learning.