Advisors

National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (2017-2019)

Research Committee Advisors

The NILPPA: Phase I Research Committee comprises two independent teams, each working to advance one of two core research questions.  

Research Committee Group 1

This group will explore the question: How can we characterize and categorize public programs offered by libraries today?

Carolyn Anthony

Jennifer Weil Arns

National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment Planning Grant (2013-2014)

Planning Meeting Stakeholders

May 8-9, 2014 | Chicago, IL

Briefing materials for May 2014 NILPPA stakeholders meeting

Carolyn Anthony

Carolyn Anthony has been the Director of the Skokie Public Library since 1985. She is President of the Public Library Association, 2013-2014, a Past President of the Illinois Library Association and a past Chair of the Illinois State Library Advisory Committee. She has served as a member-at-large on the Council of the American Library Association and twice served on the Board of the Public Library Association.
She has chaired the ALA Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee and the ALA Education Committee. Within PLA, she has chaired the Leadership Task Force; the Goals, Guidelines and Standards Committee; and the Output Measures Committee. Locally, she is involved in a number of community organizations in Skokie and she serves on the Advisory Board for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University. She was Librarian of the Year in Illinois in 2003 and Staff Member of the Year in the North Suburban Library System in 2004. The Skokie Public Library was recognized by the Institute of Museum and Library Services with a National Medal in 2008 and the Library was recognized as 2^nd place winner in the Library Aware competition in 2012.

Geoffrey Banks

Geoffrey is the Director of Programs & Partnerships at the Illinois Humanities Council – overseeing programs and grant making strategy. He began his career as a community organizer with a Chicago grassroots organization called the Southwest Youth Collaborative. Next, at the Children & Family Justice Center at the Northwestern University School of Law Legal Clinic, Geoffrey provided young offenders with community mediation as a positive alternative to the juvenile justice system. Geoffrey was then Project Coordinator for the IHC’s program called The Public Square. He brought several nationally known speakers underserved Chicago communities. Before rejoining the IHC, Geoffrey led foundation relations strategy for The Chicago Reporter urban affairs newsmagazine, the Catalyst Chicago publication on urban school reform, and community organizing programs at the Community Renewal Society of Chicago. Geoffrey graduated from the University of Michigan with high honors in History and African-American Studies and he holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Julie Derden

Julie Derden is the Teaching Materials Librarian at Illinois State University and works with undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty/staff of the School of Teaching and Learning.  She has worked with a library consultant on two public library building programs since graduating from the University of Illinois’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science in 2006, and has had a number of careers and work experience in her circuitous route to librarianship, including working for a number of years at Walt Disney World, being a public elementary school teacher, handling homeowner and commercial insurance claims, and writing and teaching curriculum at the corporate level for a major insurance company.  She worked on the team that applied for and received the 2011 NEH/ALA programming grant for “Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.”

Monica Chapa Domercq

Monica Chapa Domercq oversees public library programming, collection development and reference services for adults in Oceanside, California, as the Principal Librarian for Adult Services at the Oceanside Public Library. Since 2009, she has been a member of the Library management team, developing an exciting vision for programs for adults, the Spanish-speaking, and anyone in the community interested in culture and literature, to be delivered at Oceanside’s Civic Center Library and Mission Branch, its two bookmobiles, and local venues. Monica has been the project director and grant writer for the library’s National Endowment for the Arts’ The Big Read projects, and is the community partners’ liaison for this year’s program. Active in the REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking, Monica chaired the Communications, Publicity and Marketing Committee for REFORMA’s last national conference, and is serving in the same position as REFORMA plans its fifth national conference, to be hosted in San Diego in March 2015. She also served on the American Library Association’s Public and Cultural Programs Committee, and has contributed articles and reviews to national professional publications. Monica received a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish Literature from Cal State University San Marcos and her Master’s in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University.

Theresa (Teri) Embrey

Theresa (Teri) A. R. Embrey is the PMML’s lead for library acquisitions, cataloging of library materials, reference and reader services, and conservation and preservation of the Library’s rare books.

Teri is the recipient of the 2006 Illinois Library Association TBS, Inc. Technical Service Award and the 2006 Library Leadership Award from the Metropolitan Library System. She graduated from Dominican University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and History and a Masters in Library and Information Sciences. She later earned a Masters of Arts in Public History at Loyola University Chicago.  Her professional associations currently include the American Historical Association, the American Library Association, the Illinois Library Association, the Society for Military History, and the Caxton Club of Chicago. She has published and presented numerous articles on innovations in technology applicable to libraries and on topics in American history.

Larry Grieco

Larry Grieco, director of the Gilpin County Public Library, obtained his MLS from the State University of New York at Buffalo.  Memberships include the American Library Association, Colorado Association of Libraries, and the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (including serving two terms on the ARSL Board of Directors.)  He is a member of ALA’s Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee, and an advisor on the National Science Foundation five-year project, Pushing the Limits.  With Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys, the Gilpin County Public Library is enjoying its third LTAI program in the last five years.  He was a contributor to Bringing the Arts into the Library, ALA Editions, 2013, and has chaired ALA’s Loleta D. Fyan Award Jury for the last four years.  In 2010, the Gilpin Library won the EBSCO Award for Excellence in Small/Rural Public Libraries on the basis of its ongoing Artist-in-Residence program. 

Tim Grimes

Tim Grimes is the Manager of the Community Relations and Marketing Department of the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan, a position he has held (under different titles), since the department was created 19 years ago.  In this capacity, Tim oversees adult, youth and teen events at the Library (ranging from 30 – 50 events a month) as well as managing publicity and marketing efforts for the Library system.  Tim has served on the governing council of the American Library Association from 1999-2010 and is a past President of both ALA’s Library Instruction Round Table and the Michigan Library Association’s Public Library Division. He has chaired several ALA committees and is a current member and past chair of the ALA’s Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee.  Tim recently worked with the ALA Public Programs Office on two national advisory committees to develop programming grants for libraries: Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Worlds (working with The National Endowment for the Humanities) and America’s Music: A Film History of Our Popular Music from Blues to Bluegrass to Broadway (working with the Tribeca Film Institute).
Originally from New England, Tim holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Michigan.  He studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York – where he met his wife, Loretta – and 15 years ago they founded Redbud Productions – an Ann Arbor theater company, which, in addition to several productions a year, offers acting classes to adults and teens, based on the methods of Sanford Meisner. 

Colleen Leddy

Colleen Leddy, director of Stair Public Library in Morenci, Michigan, has a strong interest in public programming. She won grants to host the following programs, among others, Let's Talk About It: Muslim Journeys; Pushing the Limits; Prime Time Family Reading Time; “Picturing New York…in a tiny Midwest town” (ALA Picturing America); six Michigan Notable Book authors; and the Smithsonian Institution exhibit, “Barn Again! Celebrating an American Icon.” She hosted the first Human Library east of the Mississippi.  While Director, Stair Public Library won the State Librarian’s Excellence Award, 2009; Leddy won the Community Partnership Award, Rural Libraries Conference, Library of Michigan, 2005. She wrote “Programming on a (Long, Colorful) Shoestring” for the ALA Programming Librarian website.  Leddy is a Michigan State University graduate with a BA in Social Science, Multi-Disciplinary Program: Pre-Law. She is also a copy editor and columnist for the State Line Observer weekly newspaper in Morenci.

Annie Norman

Dr. Annie Norman has worked at the Delaware Division of Libraries since 1985, and has been State Librarian & Director since 2002.  Annie received her Doctorate of Education in Innovation and Organizational Leadership from Wilmington University, and is the recipient of the Audrey K. Doberstein Award for Leadership for her dissertation entitled, Librarians’ Leadership for Lifelong Learning.  Her Master’s degree in Library Science is from Drexel University and she is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the international library and information studies honor society.  Under her leadership, the Delaware Division of Libraries received the Delaware Quality Award of Merit and the Delaware Library Association Institutional Award in recognition of performance excellence principles and practices.  Annie is passionate about libraries and the opportunities they provide for individuals and communities to achieve full potential.

Marcia A. Warner

Marcia Warner is the Director of the Grand Rapids Public Library, a position she has held since December 2004. Marcia began working in libraries in 1977, holding several management positions, most recently as the Director of the Public Libraries of Saginaw. Well-known in the library field, she is the past-president of the Michigan Libraries Association and has presented nationally on customer service in libraries and using advertising to gain public acceptance and awareness of library services. She was the 2011 President of the Public Libraries Association and was named the 2012 Michigan Librarian of the Year.

January 24, 2014 | Philadelphia, PA

Briefing materials for January 2014 NILPPA stakeholders meeting

Frannie Ashburn

Frannie Ashburn coordinated public humanities programs in libraries statewide for 23 years. From 1988 to 1995 she was the Let’s Talk About It scholar-led book discussion project director in South Carolina in partnership with the State Library and Humanities Council and with funding from NEH. From 1995 until her retirement in 2011 she was Director of the North Carolina Center for the Book, a program of the State Library that developed and coordinated humanities-based programs hosted by local public libraries and their community partners. Since 1989 Ashburn has led sessions at national library conferences and workshops on implementing humanities programs. She continues to work with the ALA Public Programs office as a project advisor and with both ALA and NEH to review national grant proposals. Ms. Ashburn earned her undergraduate degree in English from Wake Forest University and her library science degree from the University of South Carolina.

David Carr

David Carr speaks, writes, and teaches about the value of cultural institutions as essential instruments for a nourished public imagination in a democratic society. Following several years in teaching, reference work and bibliography, he taught librarianship for twenty-five years, emphasizing collections, popular reading, and reference tools. For thirty years, he has consulted in American museums as an advocate for collaborative adult experiences in collections. He has published more than sixty articles, addresses, chapters, and reviews, and has delivered over two hundred talks and thirty keynote addresses.  In 2002, he spoke at the White House in recognition of American cultural institutions as places for lifelong learning. Carr received degrees in literature (Drew 1967), teaching (Teachers College, Columbia 1968), and library service (MLS 1973, PhD, Rutgers 1979).  He has written three books:  The Promise of Cultural Institutions (2003), A Place Not a Place (2006) and Open Conversations (2011).

Terrilyn Chun

Terrilyn Chun is the Programming and Community Outreach Manager for Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon. She oversees public programs for adults, youth and families for the system’s 18 neighborhood libraries and the Central Library. For the past 13 years she has been the coordinator for Everybody Reads, the library’s One City/One Book community reading project. In addition, her responsibilities include oversight for public training, outreach and services to special populations, Reader Services and community partnerships for the system. She received a degree in communication from Mills College in Oakland, California and her MLS from Emporia State University. She is a former member and chair of the American Library Association’s Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee.

Henry Fortunato

Henry Fortunato is director of public affairs at the Kansas City Public Library. He guides a 14-person department with an annual $1.1 million budget responsible for developing, orchestrating, and executing the Library’s special events programming, marketing, print publications, media relations, community affairs, online communications, social media, and exhibits – a massive public outreach effort that in aggregate draws a yearly special events door count of approximately 100,000. Additionally, Fortunato conceptualized and directed the Library’s regional Emmy-nominated KCPT television series Meet the Past with Crosby Kemper III; developed numerous successful ongoing speakers series; orchestrated efforts that led to programming partnerships with more than 100 Kansas City-area organizations; and obtained more than a dozen programming grants from the American Library Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other foundations and donors. In fall 2013, he co-directed the Library’s fifth Big Read, a celebration of True Grit by Charles Portis that included nearly a dozen speaker programs; an original photography exhibit of period photos interpreted with passages from True Grit; and on-site book discussion groups at nearly two dozen companies and non-profits known as the Big Read-Corporate Edition. Prior to joining the library in June 2006, Fortunato served as the creator and project director/editor-in-chief of two public history initiatives at the University of Kansas. Fortunato holds a bachelor of science in foreign service from Georgetown University and a master of arts in American history from the University of Kansas. He is the 2013-14 Simons Fellow in Public Humanities at the University of Kansas where he is conducting research for a forthcoming book on his walks across Kansas.

Janine Golden

Dr. Janine Golden is an Associate Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University, Denton, TX. She teaches MLS courses in library management,  foundations of library science as a profession, the public library, and marketing and advocacy Her areas of specialization are library management and public libraries. Dr. Golden's research path concerns factors and strategies related to career development success for library emerging leaders, succession planning, employee retention strategies, the mentoring process for those individuals interested/involved in leadership and management fields, and the use of the Enneagram as a career development strategy.  Dr. Golden is a past president of the American Library Association's division, Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA). She has created the ALA LLAMA 3-year Emerging Leader Collaboration with Graduate LIS Schools project and has led a team working with the ALA diversity project, Building Bridges Across Mentoring. Dr. Golden co-edits the monograph series Advances in Library Administration and Organization.

Manju Prasad-Rao

Prof. Manju Prasad-Rao is the head of the Instructional Media Center of the library at Long Island University, and has graduate degrees in English, Educational Technology, and Library and Information Science.  Prof. Prasad-Rao stays abreast in her field and offers workshops and demonstrations on new and useful technologies for educators and students. As a media professional, she is committed to a non-linear, interactive, and interdisciplinary approach to learning. She is also a storyteller, dancer, and teacher of classical Indian dance forms, and offers multimedia presentations with live music and dance on the Indian Arts to museums and libraries in the area. As an exhibits coordinator for the library, she has been promoting the library with numerous exhibits and events. Noteworthy exhibits, some with speakers include: Non Violence: the Global Choice! Gender and Advertisement, Anonymous and Anonymity, Einstein Centennial Celebration: Annus Mirabilis, The Evolving Face of Publishing and ALA traveling exhibits.

Project Staff

New Knowledge Organization, Ltd.

Sean Beharry

Sean Beharry joined NewKnowledge in 2014 as a Library & Digital Information Intern. He is currently a Library and Information Science student at Queens College, where he focuses on using digital communication tools to disseminate information and how evolving information environments affect the public’s ability to locate resources.
Having completed a Bachelor's of Art in Asian and Asian American Studies with coursework in Japanese, Mr. Beharry is also very interested in exploring how information availability impacts diverse communities.

John Fraser

John Fraser, Ph.D., AIA, is a conservation psychologist, architect, and educator. He is founder and president of New Knowledge Organization Ltd., a non-profit research institute based in New York City. Dr. Fraser is Adjunct Assistant Professor in psychology at Hunter College CUNY, a Research Scientist and Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University, a Fellow of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Associate Editor—Operations for Curator, the Museum Journal, published by the California Academy of Sciences. Fraser studies the impact of social free-choice settings on identity development and how to motivate engagement in peace processes and the protection of nature. He has led national studies on public understanding of major social issues, including public perceptions of zoos and aquariums (Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter) and American adult beliefs about the value of children’s nature experiences. His work with libraries includes serving as co-PI on two Language of Conservation projects, leading the evaluation strategies for the national, NEH-funded Poetry in the Branches programs coordinated through Poets House, and developing a strategic framework for addressing peace traditions found in Muslim and Islamic verse. Additionally, he has worked with the Heart of Brooklyn, to explore how cultural and informal learning institutions can bring public value to a city.

Rebecca Joy Norlander

Rebecca Joy Norlander, Ph.D. is a researcher and analyst at New Knowledge Organization Ltd., with expertise in education and digital communication technologies. She focuses on and is certified in International Conflict Resolution and Building a Sustainable World, with a doctoral specialization in Transformative Social Change. Her interest areas and expertise also include human rights, advocacy, curriculum design, and digital activism. Norlander’s past experience includes work with the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Digital Democracy. She is also currently the Regional Representative (NYC) for Human Rights Educators USA.

Beverly Sheppard

Beverly Sheppard is the Director of City Learning Initiatives for New Knowledge Organization Ltd., joining the nonprofit after five successful years as President and CEO of the Institute for Learning Innovation, President and CEO of Old Sturbridge Village, four years as Acting Director/Deputy Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and a career in public service. Sheppard has authored seminal synthesis publications about how cultural institutions engage with learning in communities, including both the original and second edition of An Alliance of Spirit: Museum and School Partnerships (2010), Thriving in a Knowledge Age (2006), and two noted articles from 2010, “America’s Museums in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science” and “Insistent Questions in Our Learning Age” for the Journal of Museum Education. Her recent work with NewKnowledge includes a project with Heart of Brooklyn, an exploration of how cultural and informal learning institutions can bring public value to a city, as well as a study of institutional collaboration with New York Hall of Science. Sheppard also currently works on strategic planning for the ‘Iolani Palace in Oahu and the U.S. Marshal’s Museum in Fort Worth, Arkansas.

American Library Association

Mary Davis Fournier

Mary Davis Fournier, Deputy Director of the ALA Public Programs Office, will direct this project.  Her more than 15 years of experience in arts and humanities program management and grantmaking include direction of Building Common Ground: Discussions of Community, Civility and Compassion, and Engage! Teens, Art and Civic Engagement projects, numerous Let’s Talk About It reading and discussion initiatives, LIVE! at your library, the We the People Bookshelf, and numerous other projects and partnerships.  Fournier is the author of the One Book, One Community Planning Guide for Libraries (ALA Graphics, 2003).  She has a M.Ed. in Education Policy Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.A. in history and English literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Deb Robertson

Deb Robertson is the director of the American Library Association Public Programs Office. In her 30-year career, she has worked in the areas of nonprofit and association management, program development, fund-raising, grant making, professional development for librarians, publishing and public relations. She is the author of Cultural Programming for Libraries: Linking Libraries Communities and Culture (ALA, 2005) and has served as president of the board of trustees for her local public library, as well as co-chair for the library’s successful building referendum campaign. Robertson has a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Kathy Rosa

Kathy Rosa is director of ALA's Office for Research and Statistics, which provides leadership and expert advice to ALA staff, members, and the public on all matters related to research and statistics about libraries, librarians, and other library staff; represents the Association to Federal agencies on these issues; and initiates projects needed to expand the knowledge base of the field through research and the collection of useful statistics. Rosa holds a doctorate in Instructional Technology from the University of Houston and an MSLS from the University of Kentucky. In addition to her experience working in public libraries, Rosa has taught courses in library & Information Science and Instructional Technology.