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Speaker Bios
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Bette Ammon, Coeur
d'Alene Public Library
Keynote: Library as Place
Bette Ammon, a librarian for over 20 years, has a passion
for connecting people with information – be it for
entertainment or education. Ammon has a bachelor’s degree in
English and Speech from the University of Northern Colorado
and a master’s degree in Education with core study in
Library Science from Idaho State University.
A Children’s and Young Adult Librarian in Pocatello, Ammon
moved to Missoula MT in 1989 and was employed by the
Missoula Public Library until April 8, 2005, serving as
Young Adult Librarian, Assistant Director, and then
Director. Currently Ammon is the lucky Director at Coeur
d’Alene Public Library. Her proudest achievements include
being a founding member of the Montana Shared Catalog,
starting up Montana’s picture book award, assisting in
building the new Coeur d’Alene Public Library, and joining
the Cooperative Information Network in Kootenai County. Ammon is also a delegate to the OCLC. |
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Peggy
Bryan, Whitman County Library
Program:
Growing Your Friends Group
Peggy Bryan
serves as staff liaison for the Friends of Whitman County
Library and has been an active Friend of the Library for the
past twelve years. Besides her commitment to the Friends,
Bryan works as the library’s Business Manager and Associate
Director.
She is an outreach educator for the thirteen-branch library
district, teaching Research and online skills to students &
teachers in schools throughout Whitman County. A Whitman
County native, Bryan attended EWU and received her B.A. in
Business Education.
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Peggy Bryan & Virginia Pittman |
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Shelly Drumm, BCR
Programs: Flickr 101 & An Introduction to Social
Software
Shelly Drumm joined BCR as its
Emerging Technologies trainer in mid-March 2007. She
comes to BCR
from a three-year stint as a public services librarian at
the Houston Community Colleges and brings with
her experience from public libraries, career colleges and
research universities as well. Shelly Drumm received
her MA in Information Resources and Library Science from the
University of Arizona in 2002. |
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Charlotte Fowles,
ICFL - Idaho Commission for
Libraries
Programs: LiLI Databases, Part I & Part II
Charlotte Fowles is the Electronic Resources and
Collection Development Librarian at the Idaho
Commission for Libraries. She works with LiLI-D, the
Professional Development Service, and I-Docs.
She received a B.A. in History from the University of
Wyoming (1980) and a Master of Library and Information
Science from the University of Texas at Austin (1999).
The years in between were spent teaching English,
American History, and Sociology in Wyoming, Texas, and
for nine years in Japan. She is presently a doctoral student
in Adult and Organizational Learning at the University of
Idaho at Boise. |
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Barbara C. Greever,
University of Idaho
Program: Cataloging 101: The Basics
Barbara C. Greever received her MLS from Indiana
University in 1985 and has been a cataloger for 21 years.
After working at Oklahoma State University for two and a
half years, she joined the University of Idaho
Library faculty, where she is the Principal Catalog
Librarian. She has also been active in the Idaho
Library
Association. |
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Ben Hunter, University
of Idaho
Program:
Google: Beyond the Keyword Search
Ben Hunter has been a Reference and
Instruction Librarian at the
University of Idaho since June of 2006. He holds a Master's
degree in
Music Composition from the University of Oregon and a Master
of
Science in Library Science from the University of North
Carolina at
Chapel Hill.
Prior to his current position, Hunter was an Association of
Research
Libraries Academy Fellow at the University of Washington. A
native
of Moscow, Ben's interest in librarianship was inspired by
his time
working at the UI Library as a student employee. |
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Sierra Kaag, Washington State University
Program: Book Repair Basics
Sierra Kaag began in the field of book
conservation and repair as an undergraduate student worker
at the Carleton College Library. She
spent two and a half
years developing manual skills and learning
various
techniques.
After graduating in 2005, she undertook an
intensive one year Art Conservation program in
Florence, Italy, where she focused on the conservation of
paper materials. She has studied with two renowned
book conservators and began working in her current position
at WSU's Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections unit
in June 2006. |
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Cindy Kirkpatrick, WIN
- Washington Idaho Network
Program: Voyager Circulation Roundtable
Cindy Kirkpatrick is the
Washington Idaho Network Project Manager - Access Services. |
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Linnea Marshall,
University of Idaho
Program: Cataloging 101: The Basics
Linnea Marshall received her MLS from the University
of Denver in 1984 and has been a catalog librarian for
sixteen years. Before coming to the University of
Idaho Library, she worked at libraries in Montana. |
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Russell Patterson,
Coeur d'Alene Public Library
Program: Sight and Sound Solutions for
Libraries
In his position as Coordinator for the
Learning Center for Hearing
Vision Loss, Russell Patterson has been
providing services at Coeur d'Alene
Public Library since July 2000. He comes from a family
with deaf parents and is an experienced Interpreter of the
Deaf for the past 25 years in all levels of education, various agencies, hospitals, and medical
services.
His current projects include teaching parents of hearing
infants the concept of using sign language to improve communication and
language
development, developing curriculum for teaching elementary
aged children sign language using library books for a basis
of developing sign language vocabulary, providing various
services, programs and equipment for patrons with hearing
and/or vision loss. |
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Gina Persichini, ICFL
- Idaho
Commission for Libraries
Program: IM for the Rest of Us
Gina Persichini is the Networking Consultant
at the Idaho Commission for Libraries. She joined the team
at ICFL in October 2001, after spending 7 years with
multi-type library consortia in Florida. She received
her Master's degree in Library and Information Science from
the University of South Florida in 1995. Her
professional interests are focused on resource sharing,
training, and cooperative arrangements among libraries.
Persichini has been using IM in some form for over 10 years.
She has equal experience in online chat and once held a
position as a host in an online community where all
interactions, including staff meetings, were carried out
through online chat. When she is not online or doing
library things, she likes to spend her free time with
friends and family playing cards or other games. She's
a new golfer, she likes to hike or snowshoe, and she loves
to cook. |
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Virginia Pittman, Whitman County Library
Program:
Growing Your Friends Group
Virginia Pittman is the president of the Friends of Whitman
County Library. She donates many hours on behalf of the
Friend’s group for special projects, fundraising activities,
Friend’s meetings and dignitary events.
Along with her husband and fellow Friend’s member Jack,
Pittman works at the library’s Fair booth, Annual book sale,
winter decorating party, Colfax Winter celebration, and last
year anchored the winning Friend’s of the Library golf team.
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Peggy Bryan & Virginia Pittman |
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Mike Pollastro,
University of Idaho
Program: Google
Scholar Pros and Cons
Mike Pollastro is in the 3rd year of his second
go-around
as a reference and instruction librarian with the University
of Idaho Library. He has also worked at the Pullman Public
Library and Washington State University in the immediate
area and elsewhere at OSHA and in a Pennsylvania public
library.
He has a long history of working with databases, served on
the original organizing committee for LiLI and also on the
organizing committee for the statewide database program in
Washington.
His wife, Christine, is a mental health counselor in
Clarkston
and Pullman, and Mike is her most difficult case. |
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Rochelle Smith,
University of Idaho
Programs: Readers Advisory for Academics; Google
Scholar Pros and Cons
Rochelle Smith is a reference librarian at the
University
of Idaho. She has also been a public, children's, and
special librarian. Originally from Trinidad and
Tobago,
she received a BS in conservation ecology from Rutgers
University, and an MLIS from the University of
Pittsburgh |
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Debra Spidal,
University of Idaho
Program:
Cataloging 102: DVD's
Debra Spidal received her MLIS from University of
Washington, 1977. She worked as a Systems Librarian
in northeastern Oregon for eight years before coming to
Moscow, Idaho in 2005. She currently works as a
Catalog Librarian at the University of Idaho Library. |
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Gwen Taylor, Lewis-Clark State College
Program: Hook 'Em with Book Talks
As a voracious reader, a former elementary
school teacher and currently
a professor of children's
literature at Lewis-Clark State College, Gwen
Taylor has been
involved with children's literature for her entire life.
Most recently she served on the International Reading
Association's Teachers' Choice Committee for nine years,
chairing for three and the 2007's American Library
Association's Newbery Committee. Sharing books with
all readers, especially children, is one of her greatest
joys in life. |
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John Thomsen, Musician
Program: Folk Music from a Different Perspective
John Thomsen
is a self-employed
musician, carpenter,
cabinetmaker,
U.S. Forest Service lookout, and member of the More’s Creek String
Band. He has over 40 years of experience
performing for folk festivals, school presentations,
political rallies, community gatherings, and other
activities.
He sings and plays the guitar, recorder, dobro, harmonica,
swynette, mandolin, flute, autoharp, accordion, and
fivestring banjo. He holds
a degree in Anthropology from the
University of Idaho. |
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Jan Wall, ICFL - Idaho Commission for
Libraries
Program: Whaddya Know? For Library Trustees
Jan Wall is the Idaho
Commission for Libraries Northern Field Consultant.
She has worked in Idaho
libraries for over 30 years. She has an undergraduate
degree from Washington State University in
Elementary Education and an MLS from the University of
Washington. The topics of interest are
legislation, e-rate, and children's services. She
currently serves as Treasurer of CSLP - Collaborative
Summer Reading Program.
If she isn't busy on library business, she can be found in
her kayak or the garden. |
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Nancy Young, University of Idaho
Program: Flying Off the Shelves: Collection
Promotion
in
Academic Libraries
Nancy Young began her career as a librarian in 1974
and has
worked
at a number of academic libraries (including the Hotel
Administration
Library at Cornell University and the law
libraries at the
University of Southern California and UCLA)
in both technical and public services.
She began her current
position as Reference/Instruction
Librarian at
the University
of
Idaho Library in 1998. She holds an
MLS degree
from the
University of Wisconsin--Madison and a JD degree
from the
University of California-Berkeley.
In her spare time, Young tries to practice what she preaches
and
reads
a variety of fiction and non-fiction for the sheer joy of
it. |
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