Gamer geek Eli Neiburger to headline AASL President’s Program

CHICAGO – Self-proclaimed geek, gamer, dork and doofus Eli Neiburger, will headline the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) President’s Program taking place at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 27, as part of the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. An engaging and entertaining speaker, Neiburger has spoken across the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand about libraries, gaming, ebooks, publishing and the Web.

“My goal for my President’s Program was to find someone who will make me think,” said Terri Grief, AASL President. “I met Eli back in 2009 as a member of ALA’s expert group for libraries, literacy and gaming project. He was actively integrating games in the Ann Arbor library and bringing kids, young and old, into the library.”

Neiburger is currently the deputy director of the Ann Arbor District Library where he was hired as a helpdesk technician in 1997. An avid gamer, he is the author of “Gamers... in the LIBRARY?!” as well as a contributor to “VOYA,” “Library Technology Reports,” “BOOK: A Futurist's Manifesto” and “Well Played,” a journal of videogame criticism produced by Carnegie Mellon's ETC Press. 

“I was enthralled with his keynote at the recent Maine Library Conference,” continues Grief. “His talk of inverting libraries is definitely something that will engage us. He made me think about what I do and why I do it, think about what changes are coming in the library world and think about what I can do to make my library become what 21st century students need. Most importantly, Eli does it in an entertaining way!"

The AASL President's Program is an annual event featuring prominent experts on issues relevant to school librarianship and is open to all registered conference attendees. For more information about this and other AASL programs at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco, visit www.ala.org/aasl/annual.

The American Association of School Librarians www.aasl.org, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), empowers leaders to transform teaching and learning.