Speakers

Bill Mayer
University Librarian
American University

William “Bill” A. Mayer was appointed University Librarian for American University in May 2007. From late 2001 to 2007, Mayer served as the Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Technical Services at The George Washington University.  He was directly responsible for the development, implementation, and integration of information technology services across the entire library system operation.  He served as an adjunct faculty member for the School of Library and Information Science at Catholic University, teaching the “College and University Libraries” course in 2005 and 2006.

After beginning his library career in 1990 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, and eventually serving as the Document Resources Librarian, Mayer went on to work at the Harvard Business School Library as Access Services Manager. Mayer came to DC in 1999 to serve as the Systems Librarian for Public Services for the Washington Research Library Consortium, an organization of which GW and American University are members. Mayer is an international speaker and leader on the changing face of services in libraries, managing organizational change and the innovative applications of technology in library and university systems. Mayer was GW’s first Frye Leadership Institute Scholar in 2005. He earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Washington and a MLS from Simmons College. Prior to working in academic libraries, Mayer worked in a variety of occupations, including vineyard management, cattle ranching, and residential construction. His interests include ocean ecology, music, and next-generation learning systems. A native Californian who grew up on the campus of Cal-Tech, he currently lives on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. with his family and an assortment of animals.

Lauren Pressley
Instructional Design Librarian
Wake Forest University

Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. In addition to teaching several sections of one-credit information literacy classes each year, she is responsible for regular library instruction. She collaborates with other librarians and faculty to help improve the design of their teaching. Additionally, she works with faculty to share information about integrating appropriate educational technology into their coursework through the innovative use of emerging technologies. Ms. Pressley’s passion is to help people learn about the changing information landscape, encouraging them to critically assess how that affects them as consumers and producers of information.

As an Instructional Design Librarian Ms. Pressley has created and co-taught a two-semester “Teaching Teaching” program, which was open to librarians at Wake Forest University. Along with the library’s Web Services Librarian, she designed the Toolkit, a collection of short tutorials on various information seeking skills. She has advocated for a formalized instructional design service within the University. She has co-facilitated an ACRL pre-conference on Instructional Design for librarians and consulted on educational technology.

Recently Lauren published So You Want To Be a Librarian and Wikis for Libraries. In 2008 she was named an ALA Emerging Leader, and was a recognized as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2009. She frequently writes and presents on education, instruction, technology, and the future of libraries. Ms. Pressley blogs at Lauren’s Library Blog and ALA Learning, tweets as @laurenpressley, and can be reached at lauren@laurenpressley.com. She earned a BA in Philosophy and in Communication from North Carolina State University and an MLIS at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Aaron Schmidt
Digital Initiatives Librarian
District of Columbia Public Library
and Principal, Influx Library User Experience

In the past eight years Aaron Schmidt has been a circulation clerk, reference librarian, and library director. Shortly after completing his MLIS at Dominican University, Schmidt saw the potential of applying new media technology to libraries and launched successful programs at a suburban Chicago public library. Helping the library connect to its community through things such as instant messaging, weblogs and social software led to Aaron publishing articles in Library Journal, School Library Journal, Library High Tech News, Online, and others. He has presented on the topic of library technology and usability throughout the United States, and in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain.

Schmidt moved to Portland, Oregon in 2006 and became the director of a nearby public library. He helped the library grow and gain full membership in the Washington County Cooperative. During this time he continued to write, give presentations and workshops and work for other libraries as a consultant.

Currently Schmidt is the Digital Initiatives Librarian for the District of Columbia Public Library. He helps plan forward thinking, fun projects for the library, helping them connect to the community and teach them about the Read/Write Web. He also assists with website visioning, conducts usability testing, leads the library’s Library 2.0 Interest Group and helps coordinate and generate ideas for the library’s digital research and development project called DC Library Labs. He was part of the team that created the first iPhone and Blackberry online catalog searching applications.

Schmidt maintains a library and website usability weblog, walkingpaper.org and can be reached at librarian@gmail.com

Leah Buley
Designer
Adaptive Path

Leah Buley is an experience designer for Adaptive Path, a product and service design firm. She believes that technology in our lives should be ennobling, liberating, and fun. She is interested in helping organizations make that possible. Her work spans a variety of industries including media, financial services, consumer products, and non-profit. Before joining Adaptive Path, Ms. Buley was a user interface designer for Barclays Global Investors. She designed financial transaction systems, investor tools, and internal applications. She also championed better integration of user experience design into the project lifecycle. Before Barclays Global Investors, Leah worked for New York interactive agencies Flat and Plural, and LA-based BMC, an information services company. Leah started her career in design as an opinionated web developer.

Leah has a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University and Bachelors in American Studies from Barnard College. She writes and speaks regularly on tactics for inviting people into the user-centered design process. She is currently working on a book entitled The UX Team of One to be published with Rosenfeld Media in 2012.