Author Steve Berry keynotes Preservation Week 2012 kickoff

CHICAGO – New York Times best-selling author Steve Berry keynotes the kickoff for Preservation Week 2012 (April 22-28) at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas. Mr. Berry will speak at the ALCTS Forum from 10:30 a.m. - noon on Monday, Jan. 23 in the Convention Center, room A201/202.

Steve Berry, author of “The Jefferson Key,” his most recent novel, and the forthcoming “The Columbus Affair” (Ballantine, May 2012), will talk about the importance of preserving our personal and community cultural heritage. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview (Nov. 2, 2011), Mr. Berry notes, “What are we losing when that [on being told of the rapid loss of our historical record] happens? We’re losing windows to the past, thoughts to the past and ideas to the past, and that really affected me.”

Mr. Berry’s works have been translated into 40 languages with more than 12 million books in print in 51 countries, worldwide. Besides the “The Jefferson Key,” his titles include “The Emperor’s Tomb,” “The Paris Vendetta,” “The Alexandria Link” and “The Venetian Betrayal.”

A devoted student of history, Mr. Berry and his wife, Elizabeth, founded History Matters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding the preservation of the fragile reminders of our past. Since then, they have traveled the world raising much-needed funds for a wide range of historic preservation projects.

A native of Georgia, Steve Berry graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. You can learn more about Steve Berry and History Matters at steveberry.org.

Preservation Week, a joint initiative of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), the Library of Congress, and IMLS, encourages libraries and other institutions to connect our communities through events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections. Visit the Preservation Week 2012 website for more information or how you can get involved.

ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.