Renewing Our Mission in New Orleans - Page 5

“Effective Library Services for Older Adults Seeking Employment and Volunteer Opportunities” will be held Friday, June 24, from 8 a.m. to noon. The program will explore the many different ways that libraries are serving older adults in their communities, particularly as they search for employment and volunteer opportunities. Speakers include: Susan Hildreth, director, IMLS; Carol Crecy, director, Center for Communications and Consumer Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging; Emily Allen, vice president, Impact Programs, AARP Foundation; Betty M. Ruth, president, National Association of RSVP Directors; Mary Boone, North Carolina state librarian; Lorraine Borowski, director, Decorah (Iowa) Public Library; Barbara Mates, author, 5 Star Programming for Your 55+ Library Consumers (ALA Editions, 2003); and Satia Orange, former director, ALA Office of Literacy and Outreach Services.

ALTAFF will host “Celebrating Southern Writers” Saturday, June 25, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., with Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011); John Hart, whose books have been translated into 26 languages and published in more than 30 countries; Kathleen Kent, author of The Heretic’s Daughter (Little, Brown, 2008); Jennifer Niven, author of Velva Jean Learns to Drive (Plume, 2009); Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta (Warner, 2002); and Pat MacEnulty, author of Wait Until Tomorrow: A Daughter’s Memoir (Feminist Press, 2011).

“Tales from the Heart: Literary Memoirs” Saturday, June 25 from 4 to 5:30 p.m., with Wendy McClure, author of The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie (Riverhead, 2011); Margaux Fragoso, author of Tiger, Tiger (Farrar, 2011); Theresa Weir, a USA Today bestselling author of 19 novels; Brianna Karp, author of The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness: A Memoir (Harlequin, 2011); and Rachel Hadas, author of Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry (Paul Dry, 2011). The program is hosted by ALTAFF.

The annual Literary Tastes Breakfast Sunday, June 26 from 8 to 10 a.m., will feature Guy Gavriel Kay, author of Under Heaven (Roc, 2010), and Judith Shulevitz, author of The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time (Random, 2010). The event is hosted by RUSA’s Collection Development and Evaluation Section. Tickets start at $50 for RUSA members.

“Mystery and Horror @ your library,” hosted by ALTAFF, takes place Sunday, June 26, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, featuring C. S. Harris, pseudonym for bestselling author Candice Proctor; Erica Spindler, a New York Times bestselling author; Bill Loehfelm, author of Fresh Kills (Putnam’s, 2008); S. J. Watson, author of Before I Go to Sleep (Harper, 2011); and Cammie McGovern, who was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

James K. Bartleman, former lieutenant governor of Ontario, Canada, and author of the recently published young adult novel As Long as the Rivers Flow (Knopf Canada, 2011), will join the Committee on Rural, Native, and Tribal Libraries of All Kinds for “Raisin’ Readers: Improving Literacy for Rural Children and Youth,” Sunday, June 26 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. A diplomat, author, literacy advocate, and member of the Mnjikaning First Nation, Bartleman will reflect on his extensive experiences, including initiating the Lieutenant Governor’s Book Program in 2004, which collected over 1.2 million books to stock school libraries in First Nations communities, launching a program pairing Native and non-Native schools in Ontario and Nunavut, and setting up literacy camps in five northern First Nations communities. He will read from his novel. The program is cosponsored by the Committee on Literacy.

ALTAFF’s “First Author, First Book,” Sunday, June 26, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., will include Bob Graham, former governor of Florida, who served 18 years in the U.S. Senate; Rebecca Makkai, author of The Borrower (Viking, 2011); Jon Michaud, head librarian at The New Yorker and author of When Tito Loved Clara (Algonquin, 2011); Ellen Bryson, author of The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno (Holt, 2010); Eleanor Henderson, author of Ten Thousand Saints (Ecco, 2011); and Neil Abramson, a partner in a Manhattan law firm and author of Unsaid (Center Street, 2011).

LITA’s “Top Technology Trends,” Sunday, June 26, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m., will continue the division’s ongoing roundtable discussion about trends and advances in library technology by a panel of LITA technology experts. The panelists will describe changes and advances in technology that they see having an impact on the library world, and suggest what libraries might do to take advantage of these trends.