Speakers
Carolyn Anthony
Montse Ayats
Brian Bannon
Joanna Baines
Vickery Bowles
Flavia Bruni
Maria Buhigas
Larra Clark
Jane Cowell
Pablo Bruno D’Amico
Simon Farid
Pau González
Ramon Gras
Rebecca Hankins
Julie Judkins
Philip Kent
Beth Kilmarx
Ellie Kim
Blair Kuntz
Xavier Marcé
Marie Oestergaard
Jordi Pascual
Alicia Rey
Santi Romero
Amanda Ros
Neeza Singh
Manuel Suárez
Felton Thomas Jr.
Carolyn Anthony
Carolyn Anthony currently Chairs the Standing Committee of IFLA’s Metropolitan Libraries Section and continues as a representative of the American Library Association to IFLA. She served for a lengthy time as Director of the Skokie Public Library which won a National Medal from IMLS in 2008 and the ALA Excellence in Library Programming Award in 2016. She was President of the Public Library Association 2013 – 2014. She has consulted in public library leadership and planning, having made invitational presentations throughout the United States, in Egypt and Taiwan, as well as at IFLA conferences.
Montse Ayats
Montse Ayats Coromina.
Publisher. She is a teacher by Vic University – Catalonia Central University and a Catalan philology graduate by Autonomous University of Barcelona.
From 2003 until april 2022, she was the director of Eumo Editorial, the UVic-UCC publishing house specialized in education and pedagogy, history and poetry books. She is currently and temporarily responsible for the National Book and Reading Plan, pushed forward by the Government of Catalonia.
Brian Bannon
Merryl and James Tisch Director of Branch Libraries and Education, New York Public Library
Brian Bannon is The New York Public Library’s first-ever Merryl and James Tisch Director. Bannon is the chief librarian responsible for directing NYPL’s 88 neighborhood branches, as well as the Library’s educational strategy. Most recently, Bannon was commissioner and chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Library, serving as chief library officer for one of the largest urban public library systems in the world. Bannon came to NYPL in 2019 with 20 years of experience in developing and implementing educational programs and leading large-scale operations that maximize impact for all citizens and contribute to a culture of learning, reading, and community learning. Before his successful tenure in Chicago, Bannon was Chief Information Officer at the San Francisco Public Library, and worked at the Seattle Public Library and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been recognized as an innovator throughout his career: amongst many other accolades, he has been named to Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” list, and was named one of Chicago’s top 100 innovators by Blue Sky Innovation, a publication of the Chicago Tribune. Bannon received his bachelor of arts from Pacific Lutheran University and his master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Washington Information School.
Joanna Baines
Joanna Baines, Academic Liaison Librarian/Archivist, University College London (United Kingdom).
Joanna Baines is the Academic Liaison Librarian /Archivist for UCL Special Collections, where she leads education and engagement activity at UCL’s new East London campus. Working with Special Collections since 2011, she has a background in making collections accessible and ensuring users are at the heart of heritage.
Vickery Bowles
Vickery Bowles is the City Librarian at Toronto Public Library (TPL), which delivers services through a network of 100 branches and online channels. She believes passionately in the difference public libraries make in the lives of individuals, in communities and cities. Vickery has advanced TPL’s strategic plan to support opening up public spaces, digital access and inclusion, workforce development, democratic values and civic engagement and an innovative service culture, and is currently leading the development of a new Strategic Plan for 2025-2029.
Vickery is a former Chair of the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) based in Washington, D.C., a member of the Canadian Urban Libraries Council (CULC), and a Board member for the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL).
Flavia Bruni
Flavia Bruni, lecturer, University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy).
Flavia Bruni is a lecturer at the University of Chieti-Pescara and a member of the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH). From 2017 to 2021 she was a librarian at the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and for bibliographic information (ICCU), where she was responsible for the cataloguing of early printed materials within the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries SBN, for cataloguing courses, training and internships, and for international relationships. Her research focuses on the history of the book and libraries in the early modern age, especially in sixteenth-century Italy.
Maria Buhigas
Chief architect at Barcelona City Council
Maria Buhigas San José, Chief Architect of Barcelona City Council. She holds a degree in Architecture from ETSAB (UPC) and a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia University (UC-NewYork). Previously, she has developed his professional work in her studio (2014 – 2023), she was part of the Barcelona Regional team (1999-2013), where she directed the Department of Urban Strategy (2006-13). She has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European agency ESPON (2017-19) and councilor of Barcelona City Council (2019-20).
Larra Clark
Larra Clark serves as Deputy Director for both the Public Library Association (PLA) and the American Library Association’s (ALA) Public Policy Advocacy Office. Her portfolio includes broadband access and adoption, public library data and research, strategic communications, and national initiatives and partnerships. Her career spans 24 years managing library communications, policy, and research following a decade in non-profit public affairs, government relations, and print journalism. She received her library master’s degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Jane Cowell
Jane Cowell is a known innovator and speaker on trends in the Public Library industry with over 25 years of experience working in Public Libraries across Australia and is the current President of the Australian Library and Information Association and Chairs the IFLA Public Libraries Section. Jane is the CEO of Yarra Plenty Regional Library which serves the communities in the northeast of Melbourne, Australia. In her previous role she worked at the State Library of Queensland and delivered significant research projects to support library advocacy efforts such as The Impact of Libraries as Creative Spaces in 2016 and was instrumental in the development of a fully funded ($20 million) early literacy programme for every Queensland public library, First Five Forever. She blogs at Medium https://medium.com/@janecowell8 and you can connect with Jane on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/janecowell/
Pablo Bruno D’Amico
Pablo Bruno D’Amico is a Librarian and IT Technician. He holds a Degree in Library Science and Documentation (UNMDP) and is at the thesis stage. He serves as a Board Member of ABGRA’s national Executive Committee, overseeing the Labor Subcommittee. He is a member of the IFLA Metropolitan Libraries Committee and has coordinated the local team for the Metlib Conference 2023 at Buenos Aires. He facilitates the peer mentoring program Biblionetwork. He was Argentina’s Country Ambassador for the International Librarians Network. He is a member of the CITEUS Research Group on Science, Technology, University, and Society at the Faculty of Humanities of the National University of Mar del Plata (Argentina). He works at the Utopía Library of the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación (Buenos Aires), overseeing Online Services, and independently as a library IT consultant.
Simon Farid
Simon Farid, artist, independent. London. (United Kingdom).
Simon Farid is a visual artist based in London. Along with his artist practice, he also works as a guard at an art gallery. His practice explores this guarding day-job, both with solo-work and a part of the semi-covert artist-guarding collective The Invigilator Research Network.
Pau González
Pau González Val is the delegate president of the Culture Area of the Barcelona Provincial Council. Linked to these functions, he participates as a member of the directing board of several cultural organizations and consortia, such as the Local Audiovisual Network, the Contemporary Culture Centre of Barcelona (CCCB) or the Consortium of the Royal Shipyards and Maritime Museum.
The Culture Area works to strengthen the commitment to local councils and citizens in the different areas of public intervention in culture, including public libraries. Its work is aimed at promoting the deployment of cultural rights in the territory through tools and resources that favour access, creation and cultural participation, as well as supporting local councils in processes of policy design and cultural innovation.
Ramon Gras
Cofundator of Aretian Urban Analytics and Design
Ramon Gras is CEO and Co-Founder of Aretian Urban Analytics and Design, as well as Urbanism Researcher at Harvard University. Originally from Barcelona, he specializes in urban design, city science, and the knowledge economy. A Harvard MDE and MIT graduate, his research focuses on urban design criteria and prosperity creation strategies for knowledge economy hubs and innovation districts.
Ramon is the author of “City Science: Performance Follows Form” (Actar, NYC, 2024) and creator of the first ever Barcelona Metropolitan Region City Digital Twin (to be launched this coming November’24), to inform urban design and economic development strategies.
Rebecca Hankins
Rebecca Hankins, professor, Department of Global Languages and Cultures, College of Arts and Sciences, Texas AM University, College Station TX (United States of America).
Rebecca Hankins is a professor in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures, the College of Arts and Sciences, Texas AM University. She researches and teaches courses in Africana and Religious Studies. She is a certified archivist who, in December of 2016, U. S. President Barack Obama appointed to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives. She has a substantial publication portfolio of peer-reviewed works. She has presented nationally and internationally on library science, archives, social justice, and popular culture, including a recent Librarian Fellowship at The West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal.
Julie Judkins
Julie Judkins, Department Head of the Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University (United States of America).
Julie Judkins is an Associate Professor and the Department Head of the Special Collections Archives Research Center at Oregon State University Libraries Press. Her research interests include ethical archiving of misinformation, multilingual archival description, mindful academic library management, and lowering barriers for archival research.
Xavier Marcé
Xavier Marcé Carol is Councillor for Culture and Creative Industries of Barcelona City Council.
His mission is to lead the tourism policies of the City as well as attracting the business fabric towards the field of Creative Industries, while strengthening the concept of Barcelona as a platform for fostering economic activity and capturing talent.
Among his functions, it is worth highlighting the promotion of the strategic sectors of Barcelona, the stimulation of Responsible Tourism and boosting the consolidation of the local ecosystem of new enterprises and sectors such as the Creative and Cultural Industries.
He has carried out a major part of his professional career in the public sector, specialising in the fostering of culture, economic promotion and the culture of communication. It is also worth emphasising his contribution in fields such as education and literary production.
Marie Oestergaard
Aarhus Public Libraries Director’s
She has been part of Aarhus Public Libraries’ development of the library as a democratic space – a non-commercial space that empowers citizenship, sustainable communities and human growth. Marie oversees Dokk1 (the main library) and 17 branches.
She is the co-inventor of Next Library – a biannual international conference in which the development of libraries for the benefit of communities is debated.
She is a member of the IFLA MetLib Section and chairs of the board of PL2030 – a European organisation aimed to put public libraries on the EU agenda. She also serves on the board of the Danish Library Directors’ Association and is the vice-chair of the Danish Digital Library Association.
Philip Kent
Philip is University Librarian at Sydney, Australia’s oldest university. He was University Librarian at three other Australian universities and Bristol UK with extensive experience in new Library projects.
The Standing Committee of IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section (LBES) has been led by Philip since 2023.
He has served on the judging panel for the SCONUL Library Design Awards (UK) and the Australian Library Design Awards. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (JALIA). From 2012-2016 and 2020-2023, Philip contributed to the arXiv Members Advisory Board at Cornell University, USA.
Beth Kilmarx
Beth Kilmarx, assistant university librarian of Special Collections, Texas AM University, College Station TX (United States of America).
Beth Kilmarx is the assistant university librarian of Special Collections, and previously served as the Associate Dean of Special Collections. Before moving to Texas, she served as the Assistant Dean of Libraries for Assessment, Development and Technical Services at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania University Libraries (IUP). Prior to IUP, Kilmarx was the Curator of Rare Books in the Special Collections Department in the University Libraries at Binghamton University. She is a former member of IFLA’s Rare Books and Special Collections section, and presently is a member of IFLA’s the Advisory Committee on Standards. She is also a member of EGATTT (the Expert Group Against Theft, Trafficking, and Tampering), and co-chair of ALA/RBMS’s Security Committee. Kilmarx is also the co-chair of the RBMS 2025 annual conference. She received her BA in History from the University of Connecticut, her MA in Anthropology from Binghamton University, and her MLS in Library Science from the University at Albany.
Ellie Kim
Ellie Kim, Korean Studies librarian, University of Hawaii at Mānoa (United States of America).
Ellie Kim is the Korean Studies librarian at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. She has BA and MA degrees in East Asian History and MLIS degree. She started her career from the Honolulu Museum of Art and has been working at the UHM for five years as a librarian in charge of one of the oldest and largest Korean library collection outside Korea. Her interests include North Korean publication, censorship, Korean War archives, and community outreach using special library collections.
Blair Kuntz
Blair Kuntz, co-chair, Indigenous Metadata Working Group, University of Toronto Libraries (Canada).
Blair Kuntz has been the Middle Eastern Studies Librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries since 2003 and the co-chair of the Indigenous Metadata Working Group since 2023. He grew up as a descendent of European settlers in the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Ojibway/Chippewa and Anishinabek, and now lives in Toronto, the traditional territory of the Ojibway, the Anishinaabe and the Mississauga’s of the New Credit.
Jordi Pascual
Jordi Pascual is the coordinator of the Culture Committee of the global organization Cities and Local Governments United (CGLU). The Committee’s work is based on Culture 21 Actions, a comprehensive manual on cultural rights that is being applied worldwide through specific training and capacity-building programs with cities around the globe. Additionally, the Committee organizes a global summit on cities and culture, awards an international prize, provides a database of best practices, and advocates, within the framework of the #culture2030goal campaign, for the inclusion of cultural factors and actors in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. This advocacy includes the need for a dedicated Cultural Goal. Jordi Pascual holds a PhD in cultural rights and sustainable development and teaches cultural policies at the University of Girona and the Open University of Catalonia.
Alicia Rey
Alicia Rey holds a degree in Hispanic Philology and a diploma in Library Science and Documentation from the University of Zaragoza. She is a founding partner of the company Info-doc, Information Management, with which she has developed numerous projects related to the management of public libraries, teacher training, European program management, and consulting.
Currently, she is the coordinator of the municipal libraries in Huesca, where she has led several projects, including the Digital Inclusion Plan, Barriolab: library labs for participation and creation, and the Information and Media Education program. She also teaches in the Master’s program at the Complutense University of Madrid, focusing on libraries as agents of socio-educational transformation.
Santi Romero
Architect. Library buildings adviser, lecturer and teacher. .
https://santiromeroarquitectura.com
After working at the Taller de Arquitectura Ricardo Bofill, in 1993 he joined the Library Services Management Office of the Diputació de Barcelona, where he has been the Head of the Library Architecture Unit between 2005 and 2020. His work, focused on the advice and control of the projects and works of the public libraries, has led him to intervene in more than 150 library projects.
He has written articles and given conferences and courses both nationally and internationally.
He is the author of the book “Library Architecture: Recommendations for a comprehensive research project”, published in Spanish, Catalan and English.
Since 2005 he has been member of the “Library Buildings and Equipment Section” of IFLA.
Amanda Ros
Amanda Ros, librarian, coordinator of Adaptive Cataloging Resource Management
Texas AM University (United States of America).
Amanda Ros is currently a Librarian in the Metadata Cataloging unit at Texas AM University Libraries where she trains, supervises, and coordinates projects for copy catalogers in both the main and special collections libraries. She is a member of the IFLA Subject Analysis Access Standing Committee and is the immediate past-chair of the ALA Core Division’s Subject Analysis Committee. Previously, she served as chair of the ALA Core Committee on Cataloging: Description Access. Amanda has over 25 years of experience working in academic and public libraries, primarily in Cataloging. She earned her MSLIS from Florida State University in 2006.
Neeza Singh
Dr Neeza Singh is the Librarian of T.S. Central State Library, Chandigarh, India. She is currently the Standing Committee Member of Metropolitan Libraries Section of International Federation of Library Associations Institutions (IFLA). She has been an innovator and Mentor of INELI South Asia program for public librarians by Bill Melinda Gates Foundation.
She is on panel as Advisor with READ India for North India and Reading Mission.
Among many awards, she has been bestowed upon by State Award for meritorious service by Chandigarh Government, Best Public Librarian Award of India, etc.
Dr Neeza Singh was the first to start children workshops in public libraries of Chandigarh and is organizing a number of innovative programmes in her Library and outreach programmes for different communities and all age groups for promoting reading and library culture.
Manuel Suárez Rivera
Dr. Manuel Suárez Rivera, Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico/National Library of Mexico (Mexico).
Senior Researcher B, full-time, tenure, at the UNAM Bibliographic Research Institute and member of the National System of Researchers, level II. He has dedicated his studies to print culture in New Spain on topics such as the printing press in Mexico City, the book trade, and the history of libraries in Mexico. He has published 3 books, as well as more than 20 specialized articles and refereed book chapters. He has been awarded scholarships for research stays at the University of Oxford and Brown University. He has organized and participated in various international conferences on the history of books and printed culture. He is currently the head of Special Collections of the National Library of Mexico.
Felton Thomas, Jr.
Felton Thomas, Jr. has been the Director of the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) since January 2009. Under his leadership, CPL has become a “community deficit fighter,” focusing on initiatives that address technology, education, and economic development. During his tenure, CPL has maintained its “Five Star” status and was recognized as a “Top Innovator” by the Urban Libraries Council for its use of technology and data in decision-making.
Felton led CPL through its first facilities master plan in over forty years, aiming to renovate or rebuild all 27 branches over the next decade. He also launched the “Downtown Destination” campaign to modernize the Main Library and reposition it as a key downtown attraction. In 2012, CPL opened TechCentral, a technology center that provides public access to advanced tools like 3D printers and laser engraving.
Before CPL, Felton served as Director of Regional Branch Services for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and was President of the Nevada Library Association. He holds a psychology degree from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and a Master’s in Library Science from the University of Hawaii. Felton was named the 2019 Community Leader of the Year by *Cleveland Magazine* and serves on several community boards.