Our 2008 Conference Keynote Presenters. . .

Keynote presentations are included in your conference registration.

Dwight Jones
Thinking Forward
Thursday, November 6

The Colorado Commissioner of Education will share with us how libraries are an integral part of Forward Thinking, an ambitious plan to create a purpose-driven and dynamic system of educational leadership, service and support that relentlessly focuses on the learning of ALL students. More info

Mary Dempsey
The New Third Place: Libraries as the Heartbeat of the Community
Friday, November 7

Commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, Mary Dempsey has led the innovative outreach efforts of Chicago’s neighborhood libraries and librarians. Hailed in books such as Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein (Simon and Schuster), Exemplary Public Libraries by Joy M. Greiner (Libraries Unlimited), and The Engaged Library: Chicago Stories of Community Building, (Urban Libraries Council), Dempsey has shown that libraries are critical to economic development and the revitalization of neighborhoods. More info

Yohannes Gebregeorgis and Jane Kurtz
Books Change Our Hearts; Books Change Our Communities; Books Change the World
Friday, Novermber 7

The story of Ethiopia Reads, how one man brought books to the children of Ethiopia, will inspire you as you work in your community. ALA President Loriene Roy recognized Ethiopia Reads this year with one of the first ALA Presidential Citation for International Innovation. This award will be presented to Yohannes at the CAL Conference before this keynote! More info

John E. Finn
Men Feared Witches and Burned Women: Fear & Intellectual Freedom in a Time of Terror
Saturday, November 8 - Julie J. Boucher Memorial Lecture on Intellectual Freedom

Writing in Whitney v. California (1927), Justice Louis Brandeis observed that ""fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly." We no longer fear communists, but the potentially disabling effects of fear are still a threat to intellectual freedom and constitutional principles. Can the First Amendment, and its promise of a republic built on respect for reason in public life, survive a political environment grounded in fear and the threat of terror? More info

Jessamyn West
Towards Open Libraries
Saturday, November 8

Are you ready to be the library the future needs? How do we get from here to there? What does it mean to be an information provider in a time of information overload? Hear the thoughts of Jessamyn West, a community technology librarian and one of the first librarian bloggers on the Net. West has been writing and speaking on the intersection of libraries, technology and politics since 1999. More info

Jim Rettig
Creating Connections: Thoughts on Our Future
Saturday, November 8

A 30-year member of ALA, Rettig currently serves as ALA’s president. His presidential initiatives are about Creating Connections: connections among our libraries, connections between the communities we serve and those who make funding and policy decisions, connections with prospective library workers, especially those in groups underrepresented in the profession and connections that allow ALA members to benefit from and contribute to their association and the profession in new ways. More info