Pam Sandlian-Smith is the Director of the Rangeview Library District and has led four new library building projects and three renovations within a three-year-timeframe. She and her team took advantage of this opportunity to completely rethink library services and philosophy, inventing Anythink libraries. Since the "Anythink" state of mind took over at the library, circulation has quadrupled and program attendance has doubled. The Rangeview Library District has been awarded the IMLS 2010 National Medal of Honor for innovating library services and the 2011 John Cotton Dana award. Pam was Colorado Librarian of the Year 2010. She enjoys traveling, writing and inventing libraries that help people fall in love with libraries and reading.

Pam will give the Keynote Address titled "The Anythink Libraries" and will also present a program titled "Everyone is Creative" during the conference.

Molly Raphael is 2011-12 President of the American Library Association (www.ala.org). As ALA president, Raphael is the chief elected officer of the oldest and largest library organization in the world. Molly Raphael served in urban public libraries for 40 years. In 2003, Raphael was recruited to lead the award-winning Multnomah County Library (MCL) in Portland, Oregon. During her tenure, she increased diversity in library employment, collections and programming and was awarded the Arthur Flemming Civil Rights Award. Under her leadership, MCL achieved consistently top national rankings among urban public libraries and the highest gross circulation of any library in the country, surpassing libraries serving much larger populations. MCL, a nationally recognized leader in developing early literacy services and programs to reach out to underserved, culturally diverse communities, was selected in 2009 to receive the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation's highest honor for museums and libraries. Raphael retired in 2009.

Molly will speak at the Endnote Luncheon , Sunday, February 26 on "Libraries: Essential for Learning, Essential for Life." She willpresent a program titled "Empowering Voices: Communities Speak Out for Libraries" earlier in the conference.

Bob Bocher is brought to AkLA 2012 by the Alaska State Library's OWL Project. Bocher is the Technology Consultant for the Wisconsin State Library and is a Fellow of the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy (ALA/OITP). He has been working in the area of libraries and information technology for over 30 years. In Wisconsin, Bob works closely with the state's networking office on BadgerNet, Wisconsin's statewide broadband network. Bob is also on the board of WiscNet, the state's R&E network. From a national perspective, Bob has assisted the ALA/OITP in a number of areas including:serving on the E-rate Task Force since 1999, serving as the first Chair of OITP's Telecommunications Subcommittee, and developing ALA's Internet Access Principles. Bob has received the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's Outstanding Employee Achievement Award, and the 2010 Special Service Award from the Wisconsin Library Association. He is the co-author of Privacy in the 21st Century: Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries from Libraries Unlimited.

Bob will present two programs during the conference, "National Broadband Policy: What it Means for Your Library" and "Net Neutrality."

Sneed B. Collard III is the author of more than fifty-five award-winning nonfiction books for young people. His five acclaimed novels include Dog Sense (winner of the ASPCA Henry Bergh Award), Flash Point (winner of the Green Earth Book Award), and the thriller Double Eagle, which was on the state reading lists for Kansas, Missouri, Vermont, and Pennyslvania. Currently, his Slate Stephens Mysteries titles The Governor's Dog is Missing and Hangman's Gold are attracting young sleuths across the country.

Sneed will be the guest speaker at the Authors-to-Alaska Luncheon on Saturday, February 25. His presentation is titled "Bucking Out – Exporing New Frontiers in Children's Literature." His second presentation is titled "The Mystery Writer: Understanding and Writing Our Favorite Genre."

Colleen Cook is the Trenholme Dean of Libraries at McGill University. Before joining the staff at McGill in January 2011, she was the Dean of Libraries at Texas A&M University. Dr. Cook helped to develop and promote LibQUAL+®, the premier assessment tool for measuring library service quality internationally. Dr. Cook serves on the American Library Association (ALA) committee on research and statistics. She is active in library assessment, chairing both the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Statistics and Assessment Committee and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Statistics and Evaluation Section Standing Committee.

Colleen will give two presentations, "Beyond Focus Groups 101" and "The Most Useful Comparison to Make is Your Library Against Itself Over Time."

Kara N. Dillard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a professionally trained public issues facilitator. Dr. Dillard's published academic work focuses on the mechanisms of successful citizen-based deliberation and understanding of how facilitators, by the means of their discursive choices, influence the content and quality of deliberative talk in public forums. She has a background in National Issues Forums (NIF) style deliberations, having convened and facilitated over twenty community dialogues on topics ranging from health care costs, economic security, mental health care, and the mission of public education. She is currently partnering with the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums Institute to host a series of community forums on the national debt here in Alaska as part of a nation-wide project to gauge the opinions, and ideas Alaskans have for solving the debt crisis.

Kara is the featured speaker for a pre-conference on Thursday, February 23 titled "Open the Door: Steps for Convening Civic Dialogs in Your Library."

Bella Karr Gerlich is Professor and Dean of Libraries at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr. Gerlich has a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, a MPM from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD LIS from the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught management courses for the MLS program. Prior to her current post, she held appointments as University Librarian at Dominican University, Associate University Librarian at Georgia College & State University and Head, Arts & Special Collections at Carnegie Mellon University. Active in professional organizations, Dr. Gerlich was most recently appointed to the ALA Council of Research and Statistics and elected Member-at-Large to the Library Research Roundtable and LLAMA Human Resources Section. Dr. Gerlich's research interests include assessment, organizational behavior and valuation of services; she has authored or co-authored a number of peer-reviewed publications. She enjoys the opportunity to guest lecture and teach, and to present her research and talk about the READ Scale in numerous venues from the local to the global.

Bella is the featured speaker for a pre-conference on Thursday, February 23 titled "What Do I Count? Collecting Qualitative Statistics for Reference Assessment."

Ishmael Hope is brought to AkLA 2012 by the Alaska Spirit of Reading program.Hope is a storyteller from Juneau, Alaska who shares stories from his Iñupiaq and Tlingit heritages. He performs across Alaska and the United States, for all ages and varieties of audiences. He also is a writer, actor, and an enthusiastic learner and educator of Alaska Native art and culture. Ishmael is deeply involved in the cultural events of his people, and frequently shares his art and culture in workshops, classrooms, and conferences. The Alaska Spirit of Reading program is made possible through the support of the Alaska Association of School Librarians and an Interlibrary Cooperation Grant from the Alaska State Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Ishmael will be the guest speaker at the Conference Dinner on Saturday, February 25.

Heather Higgins, LCSW-C is the Director of Training and Development for the Upside Down Organization. Heather has been practicing Social Work for over a decade in Baltimore, MD focusing her efforts on working with children and families. She has spent time working with children in residential, school, foster care, outpatient, and inpatient settings. Currently, Heather oversees the training department at UDO and can be found actively presenting interactive workshops and keynote addresses nationwide to child serving professionals and families. Heather provides training in a variety of areas including Poverty and the Brain, Gender Differences in the Classroom, The Teen Brain, ADHD, and Bullying.

Heather will present two programs during the conference, "Secrets of the Stressed Out Brain, and "Jack's Brain, Jill's Brain."

Cindy Romaine is the 2011 President of the International Special Libraries Association which has nearly 10,000 members in 73 countries. She is also the principal of Romainiacs Intelligent Research, a consultancy focused on information intense projects, needs assessment and competitive intelligence related to business needs. Cindy's experience includes 16 years at Nike, Inc., where she was responsible for the strategic global collections for a world-class design community. Cindy actively participates in the professional community at all levels. She is a recipient of the Center of Excellence award from SLA. Her focus is to encourage information professionals to become Future Ready and to that end, she launched a daily blog at http://www.futureready365.sla.org which garnered more than 4.4 M hits and 400,000 unique visits in 2011.

Cindy will present two programs during the conference, "The Future Ready Imperative" and "Insights on Becoming Future Ready."

Jason Shiga is a professional cartoonist who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1998 with a degree in pure mathematics that's reflected in his unusual style. Jason's first books were self-published comics that appeared in the late 1990s. Fleep (2002), his first professionally published book won Eisner and Ignatz Awards. He has also won Eisner Awards for Bookhunter and Meanwhile. Meanwhile was also an ALA Notable Book Selection. Jason resides in Oakland, CA where he is finalizing the iPad app version of Meanwhile. His visit to Alaska is being sponsored by grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum and Guys Read-Gals Read.

Jason will be the guest speaker at the Conference Breakfast on Sunday, February 26. His talk will be on "The Role of Comics in Reading and Education." He will also present a program later that morning on "How to Make an Interactive Book Program for Small Groups" which includes making an interactive comic

Merris Sumrall leads The Library Foundation in Portland, Oregon. She spearheaded the highly successful Lifetime of Literacy Campaign that raised nearly $12 million for Multnomah County Library and heightened visibility for the library's leadership in children's literacy. She has worked on two successful ballot measure campaigns for the library and plans to add a third success to her list after the May 2012 election. A strategist by trade, her years as a lobbyist, campaign manager, marketing and branding consultant come in handy every day. She has worked in more than 30 countries. She left her life in NYC in 2003 to return to Portland and do work for the library that she loves. Check out the foundation's Cardholder Pride campaign at www.libraryfoundation.org

Merris will be the featured speaker at a pre-conference on Thursday, February 23 titled "Winning Your Next Budget Battle: Building a Position of Strength for Your Library." She will also be the speaker for the two President's Programs on Friday, February 24. The titles are "Building Library Clout in a Tough Climate" and "Marketing That Makes a Difference."

Nancy Warren is the Access Services/Systems Librarian at Fredrikson & Byron, P.A. in Minneapolis, Minnesota where she manages the library's electronic resources and provides research services to law firm personnel, specializing in Internet research, social networking research and custom map images. Nancy has taught classes on online research methods, search engines, management of electronic resources, and project management. She holds a Master's Degree in Library Science from the University at Buffalo, New York, Master's Degrees in Music History and Music Performance from Temple University, and a Bachelor's Degree in Music Performance from Indiana University. Prior to her career as a librarian, she was a professional musician and played bassoon with various orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States.

Nancy will present two programs during the conference, "Search Like a Pro 2012" and 'Internet Privacy: What Do I Know About You."