SXSW Interactive 2012 speakers

I'm a Senior Technical Innovations Coordinator working as part of the libraries and archives team at Mimas, a national centre for technical innovations and data hosting based at the University of Manchester in the UK. I'm currently working on a number of open data and linked data projects. 'Linking Lives' (http://archiveshub.ac.uk/linking...) is using archival linked open data to build an interface based around names. I'm also working on an open data initiative called 'Discovery' (http://discovery.ac.uk/) which is promoting the idea of aggregatable open data for libraries, archives and museums. As part of this, I'm working on a World War One exemplar project that will be building an interface based on aggregated open data. I'm one of the directors of the annual Manchester Jazz Festival. I blog about jazz, write occasional reviews for the the UK Jazzwise magazine website, and host a radio show on Manchester’s ALL FM 96.9 station. I've played the guitar for a good many years in various bands, having put a few records out here and there - full music bio at http://www.myspace.com/adestevenson. I've become a bit of a jazzer of late, currently being mentored by the exceptional guitarist, Mike Walker (http://www.mike-walker.co.uk). I make regular appearances on the Manchester jazz circuit having played with many of the local musicians including Mike Walker, Iain Dixon (Bryan Ferry), Luke Flowers (Cinematic Orchestra).

Amy is the eScholarship, ePublishing & Digitization Coordinator at McGill University Library, where she is responsible for scholarly communication, publishing initiatives, and making rare items from special collections available to the world through digitization. Amy was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2008, and a SLA Rising Star in 2010. Elle est fière d'être Montréalaise, and thinks academic libraryland is ripe for a revolution.

Carson Block has lead, managed, and supported library technology efforts for more than 15 years -- and within the past year took two new steps - as a full-time library technology consultant, and as President of the Colorado chapter of the Public Library Association.
As a consultant, Carson has been helping libraries large and small with IT infrastructure and staffing issues, new library constriction, technology visioning, and coaching. His efforts at his first library position at the Loveland, Colorado Public Library (beginning in 1994) resulted in the first broadband Internet connection and public access computers for the library. The line was also the first major Internet connection for the city government complex of Loveland! As a staff technology consultant for a regional Library Service System in Colorado, Carson worked with public, school, academic, and special libraries of all sizes on a wide variety of efforts ranging from direct technology support to large-scale projects, and was co-director of a statewide, LSTA grant-funded project to automate a consortium of small and mid-sized libraries throughout the state. The project involved securing reliable connectivity, retro-conversion, ILS and database configuration, and ongoing support for more than 40 libraries. Carson served as a consultant to the Colorado State Library, helping libraries understand and comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act through an informational Web site and public speaking. He has also contributed to several guiding documents in other areas, including technology standards established by the Colorado State Library, and digitization best practices for the Collaborative Digitization Project. In role as IT Director for the Poudre River Public Library District, Carson managed multiple technology projects and project teams (including network infrastructure overhauls, a comprehensive conversion to RFID, creation of patron self-service kiosks, and technology design and project management for new library construction projects), and contributed to the successful effort to form a library district. Other projects at Poudre technology included co-chairing a cross-organization committee with Colorado State University to investigate library implications of eBooks and eReaders; the creation and implementation of a strategy to support library services on mobile devices; technology project design for the remodel of the Main Library, the refinement of a staff intranet, and options for Automated Materials Handling systems. Carson is a frequent speaker and presenter at library conferences and webinars. In the past year he presented webinars for the Public Library Association on eBooks (4-week series) and QR Codes, and also launched an online technology management class for the American Library Association's Certified Public Library Administrator program. Other presentations have been centered on RFID, project management, and library technology management issues including leadership and technology planning. Carson Block has been called “a geek who speaks English” and enjoys acting as a bridge between the worlds of librarians and hard-core technologists. He has a passion to de-mystify technology for the uninitiated, and to help IT professionals understand and support the goals of libraries.

In 1985, I received a BA in English and took a cut in pay from my bartending gig to accept a staff position at the Harvard Graduate School of Ed. On to the corporate world and within 8 years I was bored, so back to school for a Master’s in Teaching. Traveled, learned, worked temp jobs and contracts (including South Korea, labeling CIBO Pesto jars, and more bartending!). Taught a few years, loved it (after first year hell was over, that is), then took a Dot.com job – that dot.bombed after a year and half. It was here I gained my most valuable skills: marketing and project management! Travel and contracts again until I got a call from my old school: want to be our librarian?
So it was back to education, working full-time and taking two-graduate courses for a Masters in Library Information Science from San Jose State. It was tiring – but I loved it! I was blending my geek with my teaching – it couldn’t get any better!
After getting my degree – and a few years under my belt of experience running a library, I moved to Texas and took a job at Manor High School – it’s been a wild ride….and it got even wilder! Rule of Thumb: never accept the job before you see where you’re actually going to work! I’ve spent the last three and a half years making the library a learning-space, reading space and social space.
The blend of business, marketing, project management and education has served me –and the community I serve – well. See the movie version of this at http://youtu.be/by-c_5tMzPA

Early riser, devoted oceanite, and advocate of radical neutrality, Char Booth explores the integration of education, research, technology, and design in libraries. An ALA Emerging Leader and Library Journal Mover and Shaker, Char blogs at info-mational and tweets @charbooth. Her publications include Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators (ALA Editions, 2011) and Informing Innovation: Tracking Student Interest in Emerging Library Technologies (ACRL, 2009). Char has a BA in History from Reed College in 2001; an MSIS from the UT Austin School of Information in 2005, and a Master of Computer Education and Technology from Ohio Univeristy in 2008.

A librarian & taxonomist by employment, and a propaganda & torture historian by training, lecturing about juggalos came quite easily to Jenny Benevento. Her dayjob is an obsession with metadata & users at Sears Holdings Corp. (Sears/Kmart). She moonlights in lecturing about why people are obsessed with weird things and what we can learn about them. She can be found online at jennyjenny.org or @jennybento.

Jessamyn West is a community technologist, librarian, and moderator of the massive group blog MetaFilter. She has recently completed writing "Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide" which will be published in April 2011.

Jon Voss is helping to build an open ecosystem of historical data across libraries, archives, and museums worldwide. In his work at the intersection of history and technology, he’s jumpstarting important projects ranging from the development of institutional infrastructure (like Linked Data, and game-changing conferences and working groups) to consumer facing web and mobile products. Voss is the Historypin Strategic Partnerships Director at the London-based non-profit We Are What We Do. He's spoken at conferences like SXSW Interactive, Where2.0, Data2.0, SemTech, and recently lead workshops at the Smithsonian, New York Public Library and the Internet Archive.

I'm currently Digital Library Manager for the University of York, a job I've been doing for nearly 4 years. My main job is in managing the development of a multimedia Digital Library for the University, based on Fedora Commons software with custom bits and pieces. I'm also involved in funded projects and getting funding. I've been doing stuff around metadata and repository standards for a few years now, and have recently gotten interested in open and linked data. Beyond the day job I'm a wannabe coder, vegetable grower, pet owner and wife.

Martin R. Kalfatovic is the Associate Director, Digital Services Division at Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The Digital Services Division oversees the Libraries’ digitization efforts, which include digital editions and collections, online exhibitions, and other website content. Current projects include work on metadata, standards, and intellectual property issues. As the Deputy Program Director for the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), a consortium of twelve US and UK natural history and botanical garden libraries, he assists with the global coordination of the BHL project working with BHL nodes in China, Brazil, Australia, the European Union, and Egypt.

Michael is a librarian, presenter, author and practical technology fan. He has 20 years of experience working in Libraryland, writes regularly in major library journals around the world and in 2009 was selected as a Library Journal “Mover & Shaker”. In 2010 was elected to the American Library Association’s governing Council and in 2011 to ALA's Executive Board. He previously worked with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC, WebJunction, and the Allen County Public Library. Michael currently serves as CEO of Library Renewal, an non-profit organization dedicated to research, partnerships and grassroots support for libraries as they struggle to offer electronic content to their users in competitive ways. Visit libraryrenewal.org for more info on this work.

I liaise and assist.

Nate Hill is a librarian, designer, and naturalist living in the Santa Cruz mountains. By day he is a Web Librarian at the San Jose Public Library, and in his 'free time' he writes for the Public Library Association Blog, does web consulting work with Influx.us, and acts as a convener for the Audience and Participation Workstream of the Digital Public Library of America.

Nell Taylor is the founder and executive director of Read/Write Library (formerly the Chicago Underground Library) and co-creator of The Printers’ Ball, an annual inclusive event for the broadly defined small press community. She is an independent digital media consultant specializing in community-building and social engagement projects. She writes about culture, technology and occasionally wrestling for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog and others.

Author and digital book architect. I write about and help people create reader-friendly digital books. Author, “Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience” (O’Reilly).

Rachel Frick is the Director of the Digital Library Federation Program at the Council on Library and Information Resources(CLIR/DLF).
She is also a contributor to the Digital Public Library of America project, serving as the co-chair for the Content & Scope Workstream. Previous to her work at CLIR, Rachel was a senior program officer at the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Rachel has worked as a regional sales operative, medical circuit librarian, to digitizing civil war era newspapers at the University of Richmond.She holds an MSLS degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in English literature from Guilford College, home of the fighting Quakers She is devoted to her hound dog, LuLu, grew up during the eighties,drinks bourbon straight, and made her father proud when she was included in the 2008 Encyclopedia Britannnica Book of the Year as a digital librarian.

Shannon Okey is the founder of Cooperative Press, an independent publishing company devoted to exploring new ways to publish, promote and champion authors in a swiftly-changing industry. CP pays significantly higher royalty rates and offers much more control than other publishers do. We're also digital-friendly and constantly looking for new ways to do what we do better. Shannon herself is perhaps better known by her online moniker Knitgrrl, and is the author of more than a dozen major-publisher books, a former magazine editor and a frequent contributor to magazines and television.