About Our Speakers (S-Z)
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Paddy Satzer
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Mary Scheide Mary is the branch manager for the Dakota County Farmington Library. She has held supervisory positions in Dakota County since 1995, joining the Library in 2008. Mary holds an MLIS from Dominican University and has participated in the County’s Management Academy. Her undergraduate work included information management and community health education. In addition to the public sector, Mary has experience in special libraries (business and public health).
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Mary E. Schoenborn
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Margie Schuster Margaret has been the coordinator of volunteer services and Friends of the Library for 15 years at Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis, MN, and the surrounding suburbs. She serves as liaison to 26 current Friends groups. Margaret is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with degrees in social work and corrections and an MEd in training and organization development. She is a member of the Minnesota Association of Volunteer Administrators and is on the board of the Minnesota Association of Library Friends. She is a member and past chair of the Hennepin County Volunteer Programs Network. She also participates with the Volunteer Interest group of MELSA.
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Catherine Settanni Catherine is founder and executive director of Digital Access (www.digitalaccess.org) and The Community Technology Empowerment Project (www.technologypower.org). Both are Minnesota projects helping to bridge the digital divide through support of community-based technology initiatives. Catherine recently chaired the City of Minneapolis “Digital Inclusion Task Force” in conjunction with the Wireless Minneapolis initiative, and is now managing the City’s first iteration of the Community and Neighborhood Portal.
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Jan Siffing Jan’s involvement with a Friends of the Library group began in 1994 and has continued to the present time. She graduated from Mankato State University with a dental hygiene degree, but was able to explore her love for the written word while serving as the librarian at a private elementary school for six years. After moving to Alexandria in 2002, Jan joined the Douglas County Friends and Foundation and is presently serving as their president. Working part-time allowed time for other volunteer opportunities, such as Elder Network, Habitat for Humanity, president of the Atikwa Ladies Golf League, Liturgy Committee at St. Mary’s Church, and volunteering at free dental clinics. The work that Jan does for the Friends group gives her the most pleasure and she feels truly blessed to be working with a librarian and board of directors who have the same deep commitment to libraries that she does.
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Lisa Sjoberg Lisa is the keeper of Roald Amundsen’s teeth.
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Maggie Snow
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Dawn M. Sommers Dawn is a reference and instruction librarian at the Eagan Campus of Rasmussen College, where she supports the information literacy needs of students, faculty, and staff. Before joining Rasmussen College, Dawn previously worked as a youth services librarian with Carver County Public Libraries in the Western Cluster. As a youth services librarian, Dawn planned and implemented many literacy programs and teen game nights. She worked closely with teen volunteers and was involved in the recruitment, interviewing, and scheduling process of youth library workers.
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Amy L. Springer Amy is a government and business librarian at St. John’s University. She has an M.L.I.S. from Dominican University through the College of St. Catherine and an undergraduate degree in history from Gustavus Adolphus College. Amy is interested in improving services to accommodate Millennial students and believes that critical thinking skills are very important. At the time of submitting her MLA conference proposal, Amy was employed at Rasmussen College as a reference and instruction librarian. She also loves engaging in social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. twitter: amylibrarian blog: http://ch-ch-chchanginglibrarian.blogspot.com/ e-mail: aspringer@csbsju.edu
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Andy Stehr Andrew is the circulation services manager at the Rochester Public Library. He participated in the MLA Leadership Institute in 2007. Andrew is a big nerd. He wrote this himself, is hoping there are fewer than 10 typos, and enjoyed referring to himself in the third person more than you can imagine.
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Nancy Thornbury Nancy is the literacy coordinator of the Franklin Learning Center (FLC), an adult learning center that is housed in the Franklin Library. The program serves adults from more than 25 countries (including the U.S.) in English, conversation skills, math, and GED and citizenship test preparation. The program has three staff members and more than 100 volunteers who work directly with the learners. Nancy has a teaching license in elementary education and a master’s degree in library science. She started working in libraries at Los Angeles Public Library in the 1980s. In Minnesota, she has worked as a teacher and Bookmobile librarian, and has been the coordinator of the FLC for the past ten years.
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Heather Tompkins
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Ann Treacy Ann has a master’s degree in library and information science and has worked extensively with the Internet since 1995. She helps clients implement their ideas by listening to their visions, helping to organize their thoughts, prioritizing their needs, and synthesizing information to create a palpable product, such as an online tool, web site, or curriculum.
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Jennifer Turner Jennifer is new to PALS. Previously, she served for four years as the technical services coordinator of the Luise V. Hanson Library at Waldorf College in Forest City, IA. During this time, she actively engaged in all aspects of librarianship—from reference to collection development to cataloging—and led the library’s migration to an upgraded ILS. She was a member of the ALA’s Emerging Leaders Class of 2008, has been accepted into the 2009 LLAMA Mentoring Program, and actively serves on a number of ALA Divisional Committees. Jennifer holds an MLIS from Dominican University and a BA in French and communication from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.
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Michelle L. Twait Michelle has been a reference librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College since 2000. She received her MA in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She can be reached at mtwait@gustavus.edu.
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Carla Dewey Urban
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Janet Urbanowicz
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Mary Ann E. VanCura Mary Ann serves as library development and continuing education coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Education Division of State Library Services. In past positions, she has provided technology training to patrons of the Minneapolis Public Library, served as head of technical services in law school libraries, and provided consulting services. She is a founding member of the Minnesota-based Technology Literacy Collaborative and continues to monitor access to computers and the Internet.
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Fred Vogt Fred was a prior speaker at the annual conventions of the Pennsylvania Library Association, the Missouri Library Association, the Colorado Library Association, the Wyoming Library Association, and the Missouri Association of School Librarians. He is the author of See Sally Kick Ass: A Woman’s Guide to Personal Safety. He is the holder of four black belts.
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Ann Walker Smalley
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Sandy Walsh Sandy has been with Ramsey County since 1972. She has responsibility for planning and statistical analysis, and was the library’s lead person in the master planning process. Sandy has a bachelor’s degree from the College of St. Catherine and a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.
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Nancy Kay Walton Nancy has an MLIS from the University of Minnesota Library School (2001) and post-master’s coursework in Colonial American history and rare books from the University of Maryland, College Park. After three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, Nancy worked in academic, corporate, and public libraries in Maryland and California. She returned to Minnesota in 1994 to take the position of director of the Minnesota Braille & Talking Book Library. In 1998, she took the State Library programs specialist position in Minnesota’s State Library Agency, State Library Services. Nancy is responsible for the Regional Library Basic System Support, Regional Library Telecommunications Aid, the state-certified level of library support (“library MOE”), the Regional Public Library System Arts & Cultural Legacy Act program, the federal E-rate telecommunications discount program, and providing assistance to the regional public library systems, their branch/member libraries, and library trustees and funders.
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Sarajo S. Wentling Sarajo is a youth services librarian for the Carver County Library System. She is focused in the Western Cluster of branches, where she runs two successful teen book groups and monthly after-hours teen gaming programs. Sarajo is actively involved at the national level as a member of YALSA. She has served on the Michael L. Printz Award Committee, Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, and, most recently, chaired Outstanding Books for the College Bound.
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Marnie Werner Marnie has served as research manager and program manager at the Center for Rural Policy and Development in St. Peter since 2000, where she has worked on research on numerous rural issues, including broadband access, health care, education, and entrepreneurship. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and a master’s in public policy from the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute.
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Amy E. West
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Murray Wilson
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Cathy Wurzer Cathy is currently the host of Morning Edition on Minnesota Public Radio. She is also the co-host of Almanac, a weekly public affairs program produced by Twin Cities Public Television for Minnesota’s statewide public television network. Cathy has won four Emmy Awards for her work on Almanac. She holds degrees in broadcast journalism and urban studies from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Cathy was a trustee for the UW-River Falls Foundation and a member and past president of the Society for Professional Journalists Minnesota chapter. She is the author of Tales of the Road: Highway 61. In her spare time, Cathy rides, trains and shows horses, fly fishes for trout, and loves clay sculpture and creating mosaics.
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Katrina Zabinski, J.D. Katrina began working for the MN Judicial Branch in January 2005 on a contract basis to help develop a legal resource website for the public, plain-language legal content, document assembly tools, and a call center. She is now the supervising attorney of this “virtual” Self-Help Center, which has two other attorneys who provide direct services to pro se (unrepresented) litigants. Prior to joining the MN Judicial Branch, Katrina worked as a bilingual staff attorney at Centro Legal, Inc., a legal services organization in St. Paul, MN, and she worked for eight years in new technology product development for large legal publishing companies. She sits on various task forces, including the MN ProJustice Stakeholder Group. She earned her Juris Doctor from William Mitchell College of Law.
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Renee Zurn Renee received her MLIS from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in December 1992. She had returned to school after being laid off as a geological engineer from Shell Oil Company. In April 1993, Renee was hired as a Librarian I in the Popular Library Department of the Duluth Public Library. She was promoted to Librarian II in charge of the Media Department in September 1997. Renee has been a member of MLA for many years and participated in the first MLA Leadership Institute (MILE) from 2004-2006. In the fall of 2005, she was promoted to her current position as Librarian III, manager of adult services, supervising 16.5 FTE (18 people) who work in the Circulation Department, the Popular Library Department, and two branch libraries.
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