Avery Swartz
Technology Spotlight
Bio
Avery Swartz is the founder and CEO of Camp Tech, the tech workshop company for non-technical people. She is the author of the best-selling book See You on the Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing. Avery is the resident tech contributor on CTV Your Morning and has contributed to The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Today’s Parent. Avery was ranked number 5 on Search Engine Journal’s Top 50 Women in Marketing list. Avery has been a Professor at both Toronto Metropolitan University and Humber College. She lives in Toronto.
Photo Credit
Jenna Marie Wakani
Appearance Date
Technology Spotlight: January 25, 2024 @ 10:45am EST
Carolyn King
Indigenous Stream Spotlight
Bio
Carolyn King is a nationally recognized advocate for Indigenous and First Nation Peoples in Canada. Carolyn was appointed as a member of the National Order of Canada in 2021 for her advocacy of Indigenous-led initiatives, and her efforts to improve Canadians understanding of First Nations. She is also the creator I founder of the Moccasin Identifier Initiative.
With over 40 years of work experience in the field of First Nations community economic development, and communications, she has served on many organizations in an advisory role from local to the national level.
Carolyn King is a member and resident of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (MCFN) located in Southern Ontario. She is a former elected Chief of her First Nation community.
Early in the Moccasin Identifier Initiative, friends and teachers in the Toronto Area initially suggested a feather as a marker. But Carolyn contemplated for 3 days – what will identify us and connect us to the land? Our footwear: Moccasins.
Appearance Date
Indigenous Stream Spotlight: January 25, 2024 @ 3:45pm EST
Cicely Lewis
School Libraries Spotlight
Bio
Cicely Lewis is a school librarian with a passion for creating lovers of reading based in Georgia. In 2017, she started the Read Woke challenge in response to the shootings of young unarmed black people, the repeal of DACA, and the lack of diversity in young adult literature. She was named the 2020 National Librarian of the Year by School Library Journal and Scholastic, a 2019 Library Journal Mover and Shaker and the 2019 National Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Penguin Random House (PRH).
Photo Credit
Fernando Decillis
Appearance Date
School Libraries Spotlight: January 26, 2024 @ 9:15am EST
Emily Drabinski
Opening Keynote
Bio
Emily Drabinski is Associate Professor at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She publishes and presents widely on topics related to knowledge organization, information literacy, and critical perspectives in librarianship. Drabinski edits Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies, a book series from Library Juice Press/Litwin Books. She is a contributing writer at Truthout.
She currently serves as president of the American Library Association.
Appearance Date
Opening Keynote: January 24, 2024 @ 6:30pm EST
Eric Klinenberg
Closing Keynote
Bio
Eric Klinenberg is Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author of 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed (Knopf, 2024), Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life(Crown, 2018), Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (The Penguin Press, 2012), Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media (Metropolitan Books, 2007), and Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2002). He’s also co-author, with Aziz Ansari, of the New York Times #1 bestseller Modern Romance (The Penguin Press, 2015). In addition to his scholarly work, Klinenberg has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and This American Life.
Appearance Date
Closing Keynote: January 26, 2023 @ 3:30pm EST
Julie S. Lalonde
Thursday Keynote
Bio
Julie S. Lalonde is an internationally recognized women’s rights advocate and public educator. Franco-ontarienne du nord de l’Ontario, elle est basée à Ottawa. She holds a BA and MA in Canadian Studies and Women’s Studies from Carleton University with a focus on the lives of economically disadvantaged elderly women.
Since the early 2000s, Julie has been working to improve the lives of women and girls in Canada with a focus on engaging bystanders to create communities of support.
Ses clientes incluse les forces armées canadiennes, premier ministre Justin Trudeau et L’Oréal Paris. She has presented her work in six countries across four continents in two languages
Her memoir Resilience is Futile: The Life and Death and Life of Julie S. Lalonde was published spring 2020 by Between the Lines. It won the 2020 Ontario Speaker’s award and was named one of the best books of the year by CBC Books and the Hill Times.
Julie has won numerous awards for her advocacy work including “Best Volunteer in a Leading Role” by Volunteer Ottawa and the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.
Appearance Date
Thursday Keynote: January 25, 2024 @ 9:15am EST
Kwadwo Kyeremanteng
Careers / Health Libraries Spotlight
Bio
Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng is a critical care and palliative care physician at The Ottawa Hospital. Dr. Kyeremanteng cares for the sickest of the sick patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). As a researcher, he is interested in using ICU resources more efficiently and improving access to palliative care in the ICU. To help do this, he founded the Resource Optimization Network, a multidisciplinary research group working to reduce health spending in this area without compromising care. In September 2019 Dr. Kyeremanteng launched his ever-growing podcast “Solving Healthcare with Kwadwo Kyeremanteng.” These podcasts feature interviews and discussions on the topic of improving healthcare delivery in Canada. Underpinned by the values of cost-effectiveness, dignity, and justice, these podcasts will challenge the status quo, leaving no stone unturned as we explore gaps, assumptions, and different perspectives in the pursuit of finding solutions to problems in Canada’s healthcare system.
Appearance Date
Careers / Health Stream Spotlight: January 26, 2024 @ 10:45am EST
Leslie Weir
Opening Keynote
Bio
Leslie Weir became the Librarian and Archivist of Canada on August 30, 2019. She is the first woman to be appointed to the position since the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada merged to form Library and Archives Canada in 2004. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Weir was University Librarian at the University of Ottawa from 2003 to 2018. She also held positions at the National Library of Canada and the Statistics Canada Library. Over the course of her career, Ms. Weir has demonstrated vision, dedication and outstanding service by encouraging connections both within and outside the world of librarianship. She guided many transformative moments at the Canadian Research Knowledge Network and research libraries in Canada. Ms. Weir is one of the founding architects of Scholars Portal, the state-of-the-art research infrastructure in Ontario universities that brings together information resources and services in support of research and learning. Ms. Weir also served as President of Canadiana.org, where she oversaw the introduction of the Heritage Project, in collaboration with Library and Archives Canada, to digitize and make openly accessible some 60 million heritage archival images. She was also President of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries from 2007 to 2009.
Appearance Date
Opening Keynote with Emily Drabinski: January 24, 2024 @ 6:30pm EST
Meredith Broussard
Academic Libraries Spotlight
Bio
Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and the research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of an upcoming book, More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2023), as well as the award-winning 2018 book Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting, with particular interests in AI ethics and using data analysis for social good. She appears in the Emmy- nominated documentary “Coded Bias,” now streaming on Netflix. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, and the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School. A former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she has also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs and the MIT Media Lab. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, and other outlets. Follow her on Twitter @merbroussard or contact her via meredithbroussard.com.
Photo Credit
Lucy Baber
Appearance Date
Academic Libraries Spotlight: January 26, 2024 @ 2:15pm EST
Mique Michelle
French Libraries Spotlight
Bio
Du Nipissing Ouest, Mique a comme objectif d’abolir les stéréotypes négative du Graffiti. Elle espère également sensibiliser le publique aux réalités des minorités visibles et invisibles ainsi que s’assurer que la jeunesse et les communautés dont elle visite ont les outils pour partager leurs messages. Aussi de mettre de la couleur sur tous les murs!
Mique Michelle is a Franco-Ontarienne, originally from West Nipissing this woman’s graffiti can be found all around the world. She uses graffiti as a way to create awareness about the oppression that visible and invisible minorities face. She is convinced that murals, as just like all elements of hip hop can offer solutions to stop the discrimination.
Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bau8G-k5pXc
@miquemichelle insta /fb
Photo Credit
KNorth Photography
Appearance Date
French Libraries Spotlight: January 25, 2024 @ 2:15pm EST
Samanta Krishnapillai
Public Libraries Spotlight
Bio
Samanta is the founder, managing director and editor-in-chief of the On Canada Project Inc. She is a creative problem solver who actively challenges the status quo. Samanta strives to create critical and compassionate conversations while building and amplifying community around her. Her passion stems from her lived experience as a first-generation Tamil-Canadian and as someone who intentionally took time to focus on her mental well-being in her early-twenties. She pairs her lived experience with her Masters and Bachelors’s education in health equity, trauma and violence-informed care, diversity & inclusion and system change, in addition to her professional experiences working in advocacy and community building at nonprofits, to passionately drive change. Sam challenges herself and the people around her to show up fully and unapologetically as their full selves.
Appearance Date
Public Libraries Spotlight: January 25, 2024 @ 2:15pm EST