ONE BOOK, ONE CONFERENCE

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

This year, TLA is presenting a first-ever series of programs modeled on the One Book, One City campaigns. The 2004 conference will feature Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn as our One Book, One Conference selection. Nancy Pearl, director of youth services at the Seattle Public library, will facilitate a book discussion on Thursday, March 18, 4:00 ­ 4:50 pm. All conference attendees are welcome! Mark Dunn will speak at the Adult Services Breakfast on Saturday, March 20.

Featured  Speakers

General 
Session I

Nikki Giovanni
Throughout a long and prolific career, Nikki Giovanni has tackled almost every form of the written word. She is relentless in her passion, exhibiting both anger and sympathy toward the human condition. A towering figure in modern commentary, Giovanni is an award-winning author, poet, and activist, whose works include Racism 101, Black Feeling Black Talk, and Don't Hold Me Back: My Life and Art. In a career spanning three decades, she has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place among the nation's most celebrated and controversial poets. Currently a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, she has received the NAACP Image Award, holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, and has been named woman of the year by Mademoiselle, Ladies' Home Journal, and Essence. 

General 
Session II

 Ralph Nader
Time magazine named Ralph Nader as one of the 100 Most Influential Americans of the Twentieth Century. A consumer advocate and Green Party presidential candidate, Ralph Nader is dedicated to strengthening the voice of ordinary people. In 1965, Nader took on the Goliath of the auto industry with his book, Unsafe at Any Speed. The Senate hearing into Nader's accusations and the life-saving motor vehicle safety laws that resulted catapulted Nader into the public sphere. He has been instrumental in creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and he has helped draft legislation, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Meat and Poultry Inspection Rules, the Air and Water Pollution Control Laws, and the Freedom of Information Act. He has also helped form Public Citizen, the Pension Rights Center, and the National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest. His best-selling books include Winning the Insurance Game and Why Women Pay More. His message is simple: "To go through life as a non-citizen would be to feel that there's nothing you can do, that nobody's listening, that you don't matter. But to be a citizen is to enjoy the deep satisfaction of seeing the prevention of pain, misery and injustice."

Closing 
Luncheon

Tony Brown
Commentator Tony Brown headlines PBS's longest running series, Tony Brown's Journal. A nationally honored educator, journalist, and businessman, Tony Brown espouses a strong belief that people are responsible for their own fate and must help themselves achieve health, wealth, and happiness. In his early career, Brown coordinated a march by Martin Luther King, Jr. and has since dedicated much of his professional energy to analyzing the status of Black America. He is an active advocate of market solutions to social problems and regularly speaks on the need to empower all people to participate in the digital economy. His call to action is very explicit: No black lies, no white lies ­ only the truth. His works include What Mama Told Me, Empower the People, and Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown.

Mark Dunn is the author of more than 25 full-length plays, including the widely produced Belles and Five Tellers Dancing in the Rain. He has received several national playwriting awards and is currently playwright-in-residence with the New Jersey Repertory Company and the Community Theatre League in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ella Minnow Pea, his first novel, contains many of the elements of his unique literary style. A craftsman of words and language, Mark Dunn experiments with different narrative techniques, including the wonderfully successful epistolary approach he employed in Ella Minnow Pea, which is featured at TLA's conference as the one book, one conference selection. His other works include Welcome to Higby.

Glen Holt, an internationally recognized leader in library development and innovation, has been executive director of the St. Louis Public Library since 1987. Twice since then, he and the Library's Board of Directors have won tax elections that have tripled the library's operating income from $6 million to $18.5 million. In the same period, library circulation has tripled, visitation doubled, and several new facilities, including two new boutique and bookstore-style branches, have opened. He has published widely in the areas of information literacy through technology and history. His most recent research focuses on the application of cost benefit analysis to libraries and will influence the future discussions on the economic impact of libraries.

Robert W. Jensen's research focuses on the effects of pornography and the impact of the feminist movement against sexual violence and the exploitation of the commercial sex industry. Co-author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality, a radical feminist critique of sexuality, he writes for popular media, both alternative and mainstream, and his opinions appear in papers around the world. Currently a professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, Jenson has published many articles and essays, including writing on 9-11 and the war on terrorism. He has also commented on racism and white privilege in today's society. His forthcoming book, Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity, will also be published in Spanish.

Kathleen de laPeņa McCook
"People have great faith in libraries as fair and trusted institutions and in librarians as the honest and diligent keepers and disseminators of the human record." Kathleen de la Peņa McCook, 2002 Latino Librarian of the Year, is a powerful voice on the role of libraries. Her energy in working to bring libraries to the community table and tackling communities' most devastating problems is well known. McCook, currently a distinguished university professor at University of South Florida School of Library and Information Science, is a contributing editor to American Libraries. She publishes widely and edited the summer 2000 issue of Library Trends on diversity. A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building, her most recent work, is an inspiring guide to making a meaningful contribution in your community. 

Nancy Pearl
"The role of a librarian is to make sense of the world of information. If that's not a qualification for superherodom, what is?" Nancy Pearl, executive director of the Washington Center for the Book, created the one book, one city concept when she crafted "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book," an effort to build community connections through reading. This highly successful program has been modeled across the country and is a powerful tool for positioning libraries at the forefront of community interaction. Pearl, a longtime advocate for the profession, received the 2003 Washington Humanities Award and was memorialized as a five inch plastic action figure by Accoutre-ments, a Seattle-based firm.

Shelley Phipps, the recipient of the 2002 ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award, is recognized for her commitment to working with front-line librarians and her thoughtful development of concrete solutions to significant workplace concerns. Dedicated to teaching and mentoring, she is a highly regarded organization development consultant. A leader in ACRL, she has been at the forefront of efforts to facilitate the development of library team-based, customer-focused, organizational structures. She has been awarded the Governor's Award for Excellence from the State of Arizona and is currently assistant dean for team and organization development at the University of Arizona Library in Tucson. 

Roy Tennant, a pioneer in digital library development, is manager of eScholarship Web and Services Design for the California Digital Library. He is among the world's leading Internet researchers and is internationally pursued for his expertise regarding libraries and the Internet. Among his many projects, he developed and managed UC Berkeley's Digital Library SunSITE (Software, Information and Technology Exchange), a repository of information on planning, creating, and maintaining digital libraries. He is editor of the online monthly publication, Current Cites, and is author of one of the first Internet manuals, Crossing the Internet Threshold: an Instructional Handbook.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a leading expert on the flow and impact of information in society. He has published widely on the effects of civil action, intellectual freedom, and creativity. His works include Copyright and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity and The Anarchist in the Library (Spring release). A provocative and insightful speaker, he offers a social analysis of the ongoing role of libraries amidst shifting political and corporate pressures to increase control over the dissemination of information. A faculty member at New York University, he combines his expertise in American civilization, social discourse, and information exchange.

Preliminary Program Contents