Tom Allen

In April 2009, former Congressman Tom Allen joined the Association of American Publishers as its president and chief executive officer. Allen seeks to foster the association's ongoing mission of protecting copyright in the ever-changing landscape of the digital world and help publishers meet 21st-century challenges.

"I've been passionate about books and reading my whole life. That's why I'm excited to be working on behalf of those who produce these great tools of education, entertainment and information," he said. Representing Maine's 1st District, Allen served in Congress from 1996-2008, where he served on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Budget Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Government Reform Committee. He also co-founded the House Oceans Caucus, which was created to raise awareness on the need for a coordinated global oceans resources policy. From 1974 until 1993, Allen practiced law at the firm Drummond Woodsum Plimpton and MacMahon. He also served on the Portland City Council from 1989-1995 and as Mayor of Portland. Allen studied at Bowdoin College where he received a B.A. in English. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, from which he received a B.Phil in Politics in 1970. He worked a year in Washington for U.S. Senator Ed Muskie and then attended Harvard Law School and graduated with a Juris Doctorate in 1974.

Marie Arana

Marie Arana is an author, literary critic, former books editor at The Washington Post, and former executive vice president at Simon & Schuster Publishers and Harcourt Brace & Co. Her memoir "American Chica," about her childhood in Peru, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN-Memoir Award. Her novels, "Cellophane" and "Lima Nights" were named among the best books of the year. "The Writing Life: How Authors Think and Work," which she published in 2003, is a staple in college writing courses. Her forthcoming book, "Bolívar: American Liberator," will be published in April 2013. Arana has chaired juries for the Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. She has organized literary events for the Kennedy Center, the Washington Post, the Hay-Adams, and numerous other institutions. She serves on the board of directors of several organizations, among them the National Book Festival, the Virginia Quarterly Review, This Is America, and the John W. Kluge Scholars Council. She is currently Writer at Large for The Washington Post and a Senior Consultant to the Librarian of Congress.

Dr. James H. Billington

James Hadley Billington was sworn in as the Librarian of Congress on September 14, 1987. He is the 13th person to hold the position since the Library was established in 1800.

Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1929, Dr. Billington was educated in the public schools of the Philadelphia area. He was class valedictorian at both Lower Merion High School and Princeton University, where he graduated with highest honors in 1950. Three years later he earned his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College. He taught history at Harvard University from 1957 to 1962 and subsequently at Princeton University, where he was professor of history from 1964 to 1973. He has received more than 40 honorary doctorates, and numerous international awards including the Presidential Citizens Medal.

From 1973 to 1987, Dr. Billington was director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. director, he founded the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Center and seven other new programs as well as the Wilson Quarterly.

Dr. Billington has championed the Library of Congress’s National Digital Library program, which makes freely available online more than 31.4 million American historical and cultural documents from the vast collections of the Library and other research institutions on the Library's website at www.loc.gov. His proposal in 2005 for the creation of a World Digital Library was endorsed by UNESCO in 2007 and launched online at www.wdl.org in April 2009. The site contains cultural materials from all countries in UNESCO with expert commentary in seven languages.

Dr. Billington created the Library’s first national private-sector advisory and support group, the James Madison Council. In 2000, the Library’s bicentennial year, Madison Council's Founding Chairman John W. Kluge donated $60 million to create a scholarly center within the Library and a million-dollar prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity. In 2007, David Woodley Packard and the Packard Humanities Institute made the largest philanthropic gift in the Library’s history: a National Audio-Visual Conservation Center for the Library’s unmatched collections of moving images and recorded sound.

Dr. Billington is the author of "Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism" (1956), "The Icon and the Axe" (1966), "Fire in the Minds of Men" (1980), "Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, August 1991" (1992), "The Face of Russia" (1998)—a companion book to the three-part television series of the same name, which he wrote and narrated for the Public Broadcasting Service—and "Russia in Search of Itself" (2004). Dr. Billington has accompanied 10 congressional delegations to Russia and the former Soviet Union. In June 1988 he accompanied President and Mrs. Reagan to the Soviet Summit in Moscow. He is the founding chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Open World Leadership Center (1999-2011), which brought more than 14,000 emerging young Russian political leaders to communities throughout America, and more than 3,000 others from Ukraine and seven other successor states of the former Soviet Union.

Caroline Brazier

Caroline Brazier is Director of Scholarship and Collections at the British Library. She leads on the strategic development of the Library’s collection strategy to ensure the world class collection remains up-to-date, relevant and accessible for research and scholarship.

She is responsible for delivering on the Library’s core mandate to collect, interpret, add value and preserve the British Library’s collection of over 150 million items. Her current focus is the development and strengthening of the role of the curator to meet the needs of users in a digital age.

Her past responsibilities at the British Library have included development of resource discovery services, the Library’s Document Supply Service and contemporary collection acquisition and cataloguing.

Before joining the British Library in 2002, Brazier worked in a variety of professional library roles within the university sector, mainly in Ireland, over a period of 20 years. Her key professional interests are in library strategy development, the development of digital library services and collection development for a digital research world.

John Cole

Librarian and historian John Y. Cole has served the Library of Congress since 1966. In 1976, then-Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin named Cole chairman of a one-year Library of Congress Task Force on Goals, Organization, and Planning. Boorstin in 1977 asked Cole to become the founding director of the new Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, established to stimulate public interest in books and reading. Cole has published extensively about the history of books and libraries in society and the history of the Library of Congress. His most recent book, co-edited with historian Jane Aikin, is the ”Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress: For Congress, the Nation, and the World“ (Bernan, 2004). He is the also the author of ”Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress“ (1993) and ”On These Walls: Inscriptions and Quotations in the Buildings of the Library of Congress“ (1995). He has edited 14 books published by the Center for the Book, including ”Television, the Book, and the Classroom“ (1978), ”Books in Our Future: Perspectives and Proposals“ (1987), and ”Books Change Lives“ (1996).

Cole is a graduate of the University of Washington (B.A. in history, 1962, Master's degree in Librarianship, 1963); the Johns Hopkins University (Master's degree in Liberal Arts, 1966); and the George Washington University (Ph.D. in American Civilization, 1971). His major scholarly interest is the role of the Library of Congress in American life and culture.

To honor John Cole's distinguished service to the profession of librarianship, in 2000 the American Library Association presented him with its prestigious Lippincott Award.

Daniel DeSimone

Daniel De Simone has been the curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of the Library of Congress since January 2000. Over the past 35 years he has developed expertise in antiquarian bibliography, early illustrated books, 18th-century French and Italian books, and 18th-century Irish books. He is presently doing research on the origins of printing in Ferrara, Italy.

Mark Dimunation

Mark Dimunation was appointed chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress in March 1998. He is responsible for the development and management of the Rare Book Collection, the largest collection of rare books in North America. He came to the Library of Congress from Cornell University, where he had served since 1991 as curator of rare books and associate director for collections in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, and taught in the English Department.

Dimunation had his start with rare books when he was appointed the assistant chief of acquisitions at The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. He served in this position from 1981 until 1983, when he was hired to be the rare book librarian and assistant chief for special collections at Stanford University.

He did his undergraduate work at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. Following some course work at Christ Church College in Oxford, Dimunation entered the graduate program in American History at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in 18th- and 19th-century English and American printing and has considerable experience working with antiquarian materials as well as fine press and contemporary artists books. He is currently completing an extensive project to reconstruct Thomas Jefferson's Library at the Library of Congress. Mr. Dimunation is a former chair of the Rare Book and Manuscript Section of ALA and is currently on the faculty of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, where he teaches the history of the book. He is a member of the Grolier Club and IFLA, and serves on the ESTC and CLIR Boards. Recently Mr. Dimunation was elected as a Member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Elizabeth Eisenstein

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein is a graduate of Vassar College and Radcliffe College where she received Ph.D. in History from Harvard studying under Professor Crane Brinton.  The publication of “The Printing Press as an Agent of Change” by Cambridge University Press in 1979 placed her in the forefront of cultural historians and had a significant impact on the evolution of the field of study know as “history of the book.”  Her books and articles have been translated into ten languages.  Her most recent book published in 2011 is “Divine Art, Infernal Machine: Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending,” (U Penn. Press).   In 1990 Dr. Eisenstein gave the Lyell Lectures at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University that were published in 1992 by Clarendon Press under the title, “Grub Street Abroad:  Aspects of the French Cosmopolitan Press from the Age of Louis XIV to the French Revolution.”  In 2012 she received The Gutenberg Prize awarded by the City of Mainz and the International Gutenberg Society.  Presently she is Professor Emerita of History, University of Michigan.

Sir Harold Evans

Sir Harold Evans is Editor at Large of Thomson Reuters, the world's largest international multimedia news provider. In this position, Evans moderates news-making conversations with global leaders and hosts debates on contemporary issues.

Evans, a naturalized American citizen, was the editor of The Sunday Times of London from 1967 to 1981, and editor of The Times from 1981 to 1982. His account of these years was published in his best-selling book Good Times, Bad Times, which was just re-issued in digital form.

He was the founding editor of Conde Nast Traveler magazine and President and Publisher of Random House Trade Group (1990-1997). From 1997-1999 he was Editorial Director and Vice Chairman of U.S. News & World Report, the New York Daily News, The Atlantic Monthly and Fast Company. (Evans remains a Contributing Editor at U.S. News & World Report.)

He is an editor – most recently of Henry Kissinger's On China - and author of a number of books, including two critically acclaimed best-selling histories of America: “The American Century” and “They Made America: From the Steamboat to Cyberspace, Two Centuries of Innovation.” His latest book is his memoir, “My Paper Chase.”

Among many recognitions, Evans was awarded the European Gold Medal by the Institute of Journalists following his success in the European Court of Human Rights, which validated The Sunday Times' investigation and campaign on behalf of children injured by the pharmaceutical thalidomide. The British government was then obliged to change the law.

In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the UK Press Award Committee, its highest accolade. In 2000, Evans was chosen as one of 50 World Press Heroes on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Press Institute in defense of press freedom. In 2001, British journalists voted him the greatest all time British newspaper editor, and in 2004 he was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's New Year's Honors list. In 2012 he received the Ortega y Gasset Prize for Outstanding Career in Journalism, the most prestigious award in Spanish journalism.

Robert Forrester

Robert H. Forrester is President and CEO of The Newman's Own Foundation, and Chairman and CEO of Newman's Own, Inc., both founded by Paul Newman. Newman's Own, Inc. is the premium-quality natural food company started by Paul Newman in 1982 that donates all net profits and royalties earned by the company to charity.

Prior to joining the foundation in 2005, Forrester founded and was CEO of Payne, Forrester and Associates, LLC, a consulting group providing services to non-profits and philanthropic organizations in the areas of planning, management, governance, fundraising, and communications. During his tenure, the firm served more than 550 clients worldwide. Bob's career spans over 40 years of work with non-profit and philanthropic organizations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Board memberships include: The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, the University of Hartford, The Hole In The Wall Foundation, The Safe Water Network, The Discovery Center, The Alford Group, Newman's Own, Inc., and Newman's Own Foundation. Bob holds a B.S. in psychology, with graduate studies in clinical psychology and served as U.S. Army captain with active duty service in the Republic of Vietnam.

Fenella France

Fenella France has been chief of the Library of Congress Preservation Research and Testing Division since August, 2011. Previously she served the Library as lead scientist for preservation research since 2007. France has over 20 years’ experience in heritage preservation science, including 10 years working for such federal agencies as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service and another decade as a research manager, lecturer and fellow abroad.

France holds a Ph.D and a master’s degree in textile science, as well as a master’s degree in business In inistration and a bachelor’s degree in commerce from universities in New Zealand and Australia. In 2011 she was a finalist for the Federal government’s prestigious Samuel Heyman Service to America Award. In 2010, she made a major discovery concerning the Library’s draft copy of the Declaration of Independence, in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting with edits by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Using hyperspectral imaging equipment, to distinguish discrete layers of ink using various spectra of light, France revealed that Jefferson in the draft declaration initially wrote the word "subjects," then carefully rewrote over it to make that word "citizens."

From 2001 to 2007, France was the project and scientific manager for Art Preservation Services in New York, where she developed strategic plans and conducted scientific research for the American Museum of Natural History, the Historic House Trust and Peebles Island, as well as Ellis Island’s Treasures Gallery rehabilitation and the New York Port Authority’s World Trade Center 9/11 Project. She also worked during that time as research manager for the National Park Service’s web-accessible Fiber Reference Imaging Library and served as a textile scientist for the Smithsonian Institution’s Star-Spangled Banner Project, which restored the original United States flag that had flown over Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812. Starting in 1998, France was technical manager of the Star-Spangled Banner Project. While at the Smithsonian and other cultural agencies, she supervised teams of up to 20 conservation professionals, administrators, and scientists for a number of large-scale projects.

From 1989 to 1998, at the University of Otago, New Zealand, France served first as a research fellow and textile-science lecturer and later as research and international postgraduate research manager. In the latter capacity she oversaw a substantial budget and managed work and performance reviews for more than 700 graduate students and technical staff.

Carla D. Hayden

Carla D. Hayden is the chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to coming to Baltimore, Carla Hayden was the first deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library, an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science of the University of Pittsburgh, and library services coordinator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. A graduate of Roosevelt University, she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

Carla Hayden is a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board, which advises the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). She is an active member of the American Library Association (ALA) and was elected president of ALA for the 2003-04 term. She served as the immediate past president for the 2004-2005 term and the president-elect for the 2002-2003 term. She also served as chair of ALA's Committee on Accreditation and Spectrum Initiative to recruit minorities to librarianship. She is currently a member of the boards of the Maryland African American Museum Corporation, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, BGE, Goucher College, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Library, the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences and the Library Quarterly Editorial Board, as well as on the Digital Public Library of America Steering Committee.

Peter Jaszi

Peter Jaszi teaches copyright law at American University law school. He works on topics ranging from law and the traditional arts of Indonesia to the contemporary doctrine of fair use. His recent publications about intellectual property and the idea of authorship include "Copyright in Transition" (with Martha Woodmansee, in Volume IV of the History of the Book in America, 2009), and "Is There Such a Thing as Post-Modern Copyright?" (in Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property, 2011, which he edited with Woodmansee and Mario Biagioi). Jaszi's diverse extra-academic activities have included arguing the claims of Edward de Vere to a panel of Supreme Court Justices in a 1987 moot hearing on Shakespearian authorship. In 1994, he served on the Librarian of Congress' Advisory Commission on Copyright Registration and Deposit, and in 1995 he helped organize the Digital Future Coalition. Currently, Jaszi is part of the legal team representing the National Federal of the Blind in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust litigation. In 2007, the American Library Association recognized him with its L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award.

Emily Kadens

Emily Kadens is the Baker and Botts Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law.  She has a PhD in medieval history from Princeton and a JD from Chicago.  She teaches the practical: Contracts and Sales Law, and the impractical: legal history and Roman law.  Her research focuses on pre-modern European legal history, in particular the history of commercial law and the relationship of customary and learned laws.  In 2012, she was a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress.

Karen Keninger

Karen A. Keninger has served as director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) since March of 2012. Keninger came to the Library from the Iowa Department for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, where she had served as director from 2000-2008.

During her tenure in Iowa, Keninger managed the statewide library program, its talking books machine-lending agency, its instructional materials center, braille production, and audio production units. Keninger’s initiatives included the planning and implementation of a new, in-house digital recording program with a state-of-the-art recording studio and a corps of volunteers to expand and transform the state’s audio-production program.

Keninger also served on the Digital Long-Term Planning Group established by NLS in 2001 to guide planning for the now successfully completed digital talking book transition, and on the successor Digital Transition Advisory Committee. She led the transition in Iowa from analog to digital talking books and players and was successful in securing funds for the digital conversion of locally-produced talking books. She is a daily user of the full range of information technologies for the blind and visually impaired, including Web-Braille, digital talking book machines and books, and online download services.

Throughout her career, Keninger has established and maintained effective working relationships with a broad range of individuals and organizations at the national, state, and local levels. Keninger was elected 2012 president of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind. From 2002-2008, she served as chair of the Consortium of User Libraries.

Keninger holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Drake University in Iowa and a master’s degree in English, business and technical writing from Iowa State University. She completed graduate courses in library and information science at the University of Iowa.

Geoffrey Kloske

Geoffrey Kloske is the publisher of Riverhead Books, where has published authors including Khaled Hosseini, Junot Diaz, Nick Hornby, Sarah Vowell, Meg Wolitzer, and Chang-rae Lee. He has also worked as an editor at Simon & Schuster and Little, Brown and Company. He lives in New York.

Tommy Koh

Tommy Koh is currently Ambassador-At-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Professor Koh has a storied academic and diplomatic career. Among his many prestigious posts, he has served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, as Ambassador to the United States of America, as President of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea and Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for and the Main Committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development. He was also Singapore's Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. He chairs three committees for the NUS relating to law, Asia research and environmental management.

Professor Koh received a First Class Honours degree in Law from the NUS, has a Masters degree in Law from Harvard University and a post-graduate Diploma in Criminology from Cambridge University. In 1984, Professor Koh was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws by Yale University and in 2002 from Monash University. He has also received awards from Columbia University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Curtin University. He has taught at various universities in the United States and China.

His publications include "The United States and East Asia: Conflict and Co-operation"; "The Quest for World Order: Perspectives of a Pragmatic Idealist"; "Asia and Europe: Essays and Speeches"; co edited "The Little Red Dot: Reflections by Singapore's Diplomats Vol I & II"; chief editor of "Singapore: The Encyclopedia"; co-authored "Pedra Branca–The Road to the World Court"; and co edited "The Making of the ASEAN Charter".

Congressman John Larson

U.S. Rep. John B. Larson is in his seventh term serving the people of Connecticut's First Congressional District. He was recently elected by his colleagues to chair the House Democratic Caucus for the 112th Congress. He served as vice-chair of the caucus for more than two years. Rep. Larson serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Subcommittee on Trade and the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures; previously he served on the Armed Services Committee and the Science Committee, and as ranking minority member of the House Administration Committee

Born in Hartford, Larson's parents raised him--with seven brothers and sisters--in Mayberry Village, a public housing project in East Hartford. He graduated from East Hartford High School in 1967 and from Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in 1971. Larson was later selected by Dr. Edward Zigler, the creator of Head Start, to be a Senior Fellow at the Yale Bush Center for Child Development.

Before entering Congress, Larson was a high school history teacher and athletic coach until he became an owner of Larson & Lysik insurance company. He served on the East Hartford Board of Education and the East Hartford Town Council. In 1982, he was elected to the Connecticut State Senate, beginning a 12-year tenure representing the 3rd Senate District until 1995. Larson served as Senate President Pro Tempore for eight years from 1987 to 1995.

Jim Leach

James A. Leach is the ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to being nominated by President Obama for the post, Leach was a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and Interim Director of the Institute of Politics and Lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Leach's service in academia was preceded by 30 years as a representative in Congress, where he chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.Leach attended Princeton University, the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics. He holds 13 honorary degrees, has received decorations from two foreign governments, and is the recipient of the Wayne Morse Integrity in Politics Award, the Adlai Stevenson Award from the United Nations Association, the Edgar Wayburn Award from the Sierra Club, the Norman Borlaug Public Service Award, and the Woodrow Wilson Medal from Princeton.The chairman served on the board of several public companies and a series of non-profit organizations, including the Century Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Kettering Foundation, Pro Publica and Common Cause, which he chaired. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and formerly served as a trustee of Princeton University.

Anton Likhomanov

Anton Likhomanov began his career as a librarian in 1981 at the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library (today the National Library of Russia). Since December 1990 he has occupied various leading positions in the National Library of Russia, including deputy director for administrative work, head of the Collections and Library Services Department, chief administrator of the new building, and deputy director general for organizational work. In October 2010, the Minister of Culture of Russia named Likhomanov acting Director General of the National Library of Russia. He oversaw the development and construction of National Library's new building on Moskovsky Avenue, a major center of library service in Russia.

He is also a developer of the National Program for Preservation of Library Collections, initiator of series of All-Russian conferences focused on improvement of customer service and preservation of library collections. A graduate of the St. Petersburg State University, he also serves on the Academic Council of the National Library of Russia and the editorial board of the "Library Science" journal. Likhomanov has written more than 40 scientific works on library science, the history of Russia, and threats facing libraries. He has been awarded the medal of the "Order of Merit for the Fatherland" of the 2nd class (2006), and the sign of the Ministry of Culture of Russia "For achievements in culture" (2000). He is a laureate of the All-Russian contest of academic works on library science, bibliography and bibliology.

Karen Lotz

Karen Lotz, president and publisher of Candlewick Press, also serves as group managing director of Walker Books Ltd (London, England). Candlewick Press, one of the nation's largest independent publishing companies, is the U.S. subsidiary of the Walker Books Group, which also includes Walker Books UK, Walker Books Australia, and Walker Productions, a children's television development company. Collectively the Walker/Candlewick group constitutes what is perhaps the largest employee-owned publishing company in the world, with more than 100 long-time writers and illustrators also sharing in the company's ownership in a unique business model. Specializing in children's books and young adult literature, Candlewick Press publishes many best-selling and award-winning authors and titles, including Kate DiCamillo, M.T. Anderson, Megan McDonald, Jon Klassen, Where's Waldo? by Martin Handford, the Maisy books by Lucy Cousins, and Dragonology. Prior to coming to Candlewick, Karen was president and publisher of Dutton Children's Books, a division of Penguin Putnam. A mother of two children, ages two and eight, she attended Harvard College and currently divides her time between Boston and London.

Thomas Mallon

Thomas Mallon's eight novels include "Henry and Clara", "Bandbox", "Fellow Travelers" and most recently "Watergate". He has also written non-fiction books about plagiarism ("Stolen Words"), diaries ("A Book of One's Own"), letters ("Yours Ever") and the Kennedy assassination ("Mrs. Paine's Garage"), as well as two volumes of essays ("Rockets and Rodeos" and "In Fact"). His work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review and other publications. He received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University and taught for a number of years at Vassar College. The recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, as well as the National Book Critics Circle award for reviewing, he has been literary editor of Gentlemen's Quarterly and deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He currently directs the Creative Writing program at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers is the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of more than 80 books for children and young adults, including “Sunrise Over Fallujah,” “Fallen Angels,” “Monster,” “Somewhere in the Darkness,” “Slam!,” “Jazz,” and “Harlem.” He has received two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, and was the inaugural recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, he was the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award and the 1994 recipient of the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring an author for a "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature." He is considered one of the preeminent writers for children.

In 2012, Walter Dean Myers was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. The National Ambassador program, sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Children’s Book Council, was established in 2008 with the naming of Jon Scieszka for the first two-year term. Candidates are selected based on their contribution to young people’s literature and their ability to relate to children.

Walter began writing at an early age. "I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too." Realizing that his family would not be able to afford college, Walter joined the Army on his 17th birthday. When he got out, he worked various jobs and he wrote at night. "I wrote for magazines," says Walter. "I wrote adventure stuff, I wrote for the National Enquirer, I wrote advertising copy for cemeteries." A winning contest entry with the Council on Interracial Books for Children became his first book, “Where Does the Day Go?”

"I so love writing," says Walter. "It is not something that I am doing just for a living, this is something that I love to do. When I work, what I'll do is outline the story first. That forces me to do the thinking. I cut out pictures of all my characters and my wife puts them into a collage, which goes on the wall above the computer. When I walk into that room, I see the characters, and I just get very close to them. I rush through a first draft, and then I go back and rewrite, because I can usually see what the problems are going to be ahead of me. Rewriting is a lot more fun for me than the writing is."

Elaine Ng

Elaine Ng is the chief executive officer of the National Library Board of Singapore. As CEO of the board, she oversees the strategic development of the National Library of Singapore and the network of public libraries in Singapore. She has more than 20 years of experience in the public sector, covering a wide range of portfolios, ranging from policy development to research and corporate governance. Prior to joining the National Library Board in April, 2011, Ng was the deputy chief executive officer of the National Heritage Board, where she was responsible for overseeing heritage development. During her tenure there, she played a pivotal role in setting out the heritage board's strategic plan in actively reinforcing inter-government agency efforts to strengthen the role of heritage in the public realm. She also served in the Singapore Ministry of Defence, which she joined in 1989. Ng holds a Master's degree in English from the University of Cambridge, U.K. and a Master's in Politics from Brandeis University.

Maria Pallante

Maria A. Pallante is the Register of Copyrights of the United States and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office; she was appointed June 1, 2011. In this capacity, she oversees the nation's copyright registration and recordation systems and carries out a variety of domestic and international policy activities prescribed by law. The Copyright Office is the primary advisor to the U.S. Congress on issues of copyright law and supports the related work of executive branch agencies and the judiciary.

Pallante previously held two senior positions in the U.S. Copyright Office, serving as Associate Register (policy and international affairs) and Deputy General Counsel, respectively, from January 2007 to October 2010.

From 1999-2007, Pallante was intellectual property counsel and director of licensing for the worldwide Guggenheim Museums, headquartered in New York, where she advised on programmatic and business initiatives related to worldwide publishing, product development and branding; the acquisition and exhibition of contemporary art; and the operation of overseas affiliates and licensees. A graduate of the George Washington University Law School, she previously worked for two authors' organizations in addition to private practice.

Niko Pfund

Niko Pfund is President of Oxford University Press, USA. A graduate of Amherst College, he began his career at Oxford in 1987 as an editorial assistant in law and social science before moving to New York University Press in 1990. At NYU Press, he was an editor and then editor in chief before becoming director in 1996. He returned to Oxford in 2000 in the role of academic publisher and remains responsible for oversight of the U.S. office's scholarly and research publishing.

Ramón Elias Mujica Pinilla

Ramón Elias Mujica Pinilla is a Peruvian anthropologist and current director of the National Library of Peru. He has written books on the mystical intellectual sources of St. Rose of Lima, the first saint of the Americas, and on the political dimensions of her Creole and Indian cult that prepared the ground for Peru's political Independence from Spain in 1821 . He has also written "Angeles Apocrifos en la America Virreinal", a book that includes an explanation for the late 17th century Andean sui generis baroque iconography of angels bearing muskets and Hebrew names. This angelic visionary iconography explained the Spanish Conquest of Peru in prophetic terms. It alluded to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's belief that the Spanish conquistadors were divine messengers with thunderclaps sent as by the Inca god Viracocha. Mujica Pinilla has also coordinated the two volume set on "El Barroco Peruano" published by the Banco de Credito del Peru and the collection of essays "Vision y Simbolos: del virreinato criollo a la Republica Peruana." His undergraduate degree is from New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida. He did his postgraduate work at the National University of San Marcos. He is also a numerary member of the Peruvian Academia Nacional de Historia and a "miembro correspondiente" of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina.

Senator Jack Reed

Jack Reed has served Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate since 1996. He is a national leader on defense, housing, and economic issues.

A member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Reed has been described by the Boston Globe as "a relentless advocate for his home state." He currently chairs the Subcommittee on Interior and Environment and works tirelessly to direct federal funding to the Ocean State to create jobs, strengthen infrastructure, and support economic and community development projects.

Reed is among the eight Senators in U.S. history to have attended West Point, graduating in 1971. He then received an active duty commission in the Army and earned a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He served in the 82nd Airborne Division as an Infantry Platoon Leader, a Company Commander, and a Battalion Staff Officer.

Reed resigned from active duty in the Army in 1979 and continued to serve in the Army Reserves until 1991, retiring with the rank of major. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1982 and practiced law while serving three terms in the Rhode Island State Senate, followed by three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Reed, helped pass the law putting more police officers on the streets and has led the effort in Congress to increase the size of the United States' armed forces.

He serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a senior member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where he authored several key pieces of the historic Wall Street reform bill and has been nationally recognized for his dedication to protecting U.S. consumers.

He also helped create a powerful new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to give American families the tools to fight unfair and abusive financial products and services, as well as a new Office of Financial Research (OFR) that will help provide early warnings to regulators about financial problems.

Recently, he has authored laws to create a new affordable housing trust fund, improve consumer disclosures on mortgages, and address the needs of middle-class families who are struggling with the fallout from the housing crisis.

Jack Reed was born and raised in Cranston, Rhode Island. He and his wife Julia Hart Reed have a daughter, Emily.

David M. Rubenstein

David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987. Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing more than $156 billion from 32 offices around the world.

Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Following Duke, Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

From 1973-75, Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975-76 he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw Pittman).

Rubenstein is Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, Vice-Chairman of the Boards of Duke University, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, and the President of the Economic Club of Washington.

Rubenstein is on the Board of Directors or Trustees of Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

Rubenstein is a member of The Business Council, Visiting Committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors, the Woodrow Wilson School Advisory Council at Princeton, the Board of Trustees of the Young Global Leaders Foundation, Advisory Board of School of Economics and Management Tsinghua University, the Madison Council of the Library of Congress, and the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.

Rubenstein is married to Alice Rogoff Rubenstein, and they have three grown children.

Gloria Pérez-Salmerón

Gloria Pérez-Salmerón directs the National Library of Spain and also heads the Spanish Federation of Archivistic, Biblioteconomy, Documentation and Museum Societies. She holds a bachelor's degree in documentation from the University of Barcelona and has done postgraduate work in Library Management and Government and Public Information Administration at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and the Escola d'Administracio Publica of Catalonia. Previous to her current position she served as director of the assistance office in the Electronic Administration of the Diputación de Barcelona (Barcelona Provincial Council). She founded and directed the Central Public Library of Barcelona and has coordinated libraries in North Barcelona. She has served as a delegate to UNET, the UNESCO Model Library Network. She has offered extensive instruction in Library Sciences and was a member of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Standing Committee on Public Libraries. She currently serves on the Executive Committee of the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations.

Ismail Serageldin

Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheque Alexandrina), also chairs the Boards of Directors for each of the BA's affiliated research institutes and museums. He serves as chair and member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions and civil society efforts which includes the Institut d'Egypte (Egyptian Academy of Science), U.S. National Academy of Sciences (Public Welfare Medalist), the American Philosophical Society, TWAS (Academy of Sciences for the Developing World), the Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is former Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000), founder and former chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a microfinance program (1995-2000) and was professor of the International Savoirs Contre Pauvreté (Knowledge Against Poverty), at Collège de France, Paris, and distinguished professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Serageldin has also served in a number of capacities at the World Bank, including as vice president for environmentally and socially sustainable development (1992-1998), and for special programs (1998-2000). He has published more than 60 books and monographs and over 200 papers on a variety of topics including biotechnology, rural development, sustainability, and the value of science to society. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Cairo University and Master's degree and a Ph.D from Harvard University; he has received 33 honorary doctorates.

James Shapiro

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, James Shapiro studied at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He is currently Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985, and vice president of the Authors Guild.

He the author of “Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare” (1991), “Shakespeare and the Jews” (1996), “Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play” (2000), “1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare” (2005), which was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book published in Britain, and “Contested Will” (2010), which was awarded the Theater Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award.

His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bookforum, and the Financial Times. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, and The New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

He serves on the Board of Governors of the Folger Shakespeare Library as well as the Advisory Council for the Authors Guild. He also works with a number of theater companies, including Theatre for a New Audience and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 2011 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ira Silverberg

Ira Silverberg is the literature director at the National Endowment for the Arts. Before joining NEA in 2011, he worked in publishing in a variety of capacities, including as editor in chief of Grove Press; publisher of Serpent's Tail; and as an agent and foreign-rights director at Donadio and Olson, and later at Sterling Lord Literistic. He was a long-time board member of both the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and the Master of Fine Arts Writing Program of the New School before he joined the NEA.

Michael Suarez

Michael F. Suarez, S.J. is University Professor and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.  The holder of research fellowships from The American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, he is also Honorary Curator of the University of Virginia’s special collections and Professor of English.  His most recent publication is "The Oxford Companion to the Book" (2010), a million-word reference work on the history of books and manuscripts from the invention of writing to the present day.  The Sunday Telegraph in London called it “colossal” and “a paradise for book lovers;” while The Wall Street Journal praised it as “a fount of knowledge where the Internet is but a slot machine.”  A Jesuit priest, Michael is currently co-General Editor of "The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins" and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO), one of the largest digital humanities projects extant today.  In 2014–15, he will hold the J. R. Lyell Readership in Bibliography at Oxford University. 

Nan Talese

Nan A. Talese is a senior vice president of Doubleday and the publisher and editorial director of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a trade-book-publishing imprint known for its literary excellence.

Having begun her publishing career at Random House, she subsequently joined Simon & Schuster as an editor, beginning her long editorial relationships with such authors as Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan, Barry Unsworth and Thomas Keneally, all winners of the prestigious Booker Prize.

It was at Houghton Mifflin, which she joined in 1981 as executive editor, eventually becoming editor-in-chief and publisher, that she began her association with Pat Conroy as editor of his novel, “The Prince of Tides.” She joined Doubleday as senior vice president in 1988, and two years later introduced her author-oriented imprint dedicated to the publication of a select list of quality fiction and nonfiction. The critically acclaimed and bestselling authors she has published since the imprint's inception include Pat Conroy, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Thomas Cahill, Barry Unsworth, Thomas Keneally, Antonia Fraser, Peter Ackroyd, as well as the works of Valerie Martin, George Plimpton, Robert MacNeil, Jim Crace, Yasmina Khadra, Kevin Canty and Adam Haslett.

Her recently published titles include “The Richest Woman in America” by Janet Wallach, “Sweet Tooth” by Ian McEwan, and “Saul Steinberg: A Biography” by National Book Award-winner Deirdre Bair.

Sarah Thomas

Sarah Thomas was appointed Bodley's Librarian at Oxford University in February 2007. She is the first woman and non-British citizen to hold the position in 400 years. From 1996-2007 she was Cornell's University Librarian. Previously she has worked at the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library, the Research Libraries Group, and Harvard's Widener Library.Thomas led in the establishment of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging at the Library of Congress, and has been active in scholarly communication initiatives. Under her direction the Cornell University Library was honored with the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries award in 2002. Thomas received the Melvil Dewey Award from the American Library Association in 2007. She has also served as the President of the Association of Research Libraries. In 2009 she was selected to the Simmons College Alumni Achievement Award. In 2010 Smith College awarded her the Smith Medal for exemplifying in her life and work the true purpose of a liberal arts education. Also in 2010, under her leadership, the Bodleian Libraries were awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for the excellence of their collections and their efforts, along with six other cultural heritage entities of the University of Oxford, in widening access to their historic collections.Thomas graduated from Smith College in 1970, received a Master of Science in library science from Simmons College in 1973, and a Ph.D. in German literature in 1983.

John Kgwale Tsebe

John K. Tsebe was appointed National Librarian of South Africa in March 2004. He had previously held the position of University Librarian at the University of the North, now University of Limpopo, for 19 years. He has worked in the Library and Information Services field since 1975. He was one of the first three graduates in Library and Information Science at the University of the North, and he holds a Master's degree in Library Science from Syracuse University, as well as a Master's degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. He is currently the chairperson of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries, and he also serves on the boards of the South African Library and Information Consortia and the South African Book Development Council. He has chaired the Forum of University Librarians of South Africa, as well as the Executive Committee of the Standing Conference of African National and University Libraries in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa.

John Van Oudenaren

John Van Oudenaren directs the World Digital Library, a collaborative initiative of the Library of Congress, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and libraries, archives, museums, and educational institutions from around the world. Previously he served as chief of the European Division at the Library of Congress and was the director of the Library’s Global Gateway international digital library collaborations.

Prior to joining the Library in 1996, he was a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California , and director of RAND's European office in Delft, the Netherlands. He has served on the policy planning staff of the U. S. Department of State and has been a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his A. B. in Germanic Languages and Literature from Princeton University. Van Oudenaren is the author of several books and numerous articles on European politics, international relations, and U.S. foreign policy.