Program committee

The program for this conference has been put together by a team of dedicated ALIA Members. ALIA would like to thank the program committee for their invaluable work in the planning and development of the conference program. The program committee is made up of the following members:

	Andrew Spencer		Andrew is the Manager, Library and Information Services at the Renwick Centre, Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC). He has previously held roles at the Medical Library at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and Macquarie University Library. Andrew’s professional interests include research support, bibliometrics, and evidence based library and information practice.
	Diane Velasquez		Diane L. Velasquez is the Program Director of the Information Management Program at the School of Information Technology and Mathematical Sciences, University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia. Her research interests include risk management and disaster recovery of public libraries, administration and management of information agencies, marketing of libraries, and evaluation and assessment of public library websites. She holds a PhD in information science from the University of Missouri, a MA in Information Resources and Library Science from the University of Arizona, an MBA in management from Golden Gate University. Prior to being in academia Dr Velasquez spent 23 years in corporate America in marketing, administration, and human resources and feels she has escaped to a better work-life balance.
	Kim Brooking		Kim Brooking has thirteen years experience in the online content arena, with nine of those years spent at Taylor & Francis, as well as previous roles with ProQuest and Lexis Nexis. Kim is passionate in her role as industry partner to libraries in all industry sectors. Kim was a key negotiator in the landmark CAUL agreement which changed the way in which Taylor & Francis offer content to university customers. The frame-work for the new model offers transparency, fairness, flexibility and sustainability for the foreseeable future. Kim has previously undertaken university education in both Law and Indigenous Studies, and is a previous Committee Member of ANTaR (Australians for Native Title & Reconciliation).
	Liz Parnell		Liz Parnell is a NSW Regional Coordinator and Social Media Coordinator for the Australian Library Information and Association's Students and New Graduates Group, an avid tweeter @lizatthelibrary and a current Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) student at Charles Sturt University.
	Monika Szunejko		Monika Szunejko commenced her library career in Perth, Western Australia in 1989, working in academic, public, state and more academic libraries in Australia and Wales. Monika worked at the State Library of WA and the National Library of Australia before returning to academic libraries in 2019. Since first logging on to Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) in 1989 she has been an advocate for collaboration and our national resource sharing services, ABN, Kinetica, Libraries Australia and Trove, and served on the Libraries Australia Advisory Committee from 2006-2011 and on the Australian Committee on Cataloguing from 2013-2018. Monika's professional interest lies in maximising the power of metadata and technologies to connect people with library collections. Monika sits on the Board of Directors for ALIA and is the Director, Resources and Technology at Monash University Library.
	Patricia Genat		Patricia has 15 years management experience within the Australian and New Zealand education and book industries including publishing, distribution, on-line services and testing. Her wide experience is built on a solid business and educational base, including a Master in Business, and a Graduate Diploma in Information Studies (Librarianship). She is Director for ALS Services keeping an eye always on the future trends in the industry and always enjoying the challenges of working within the library services arena in the twenty-first century. Patricia currently sits on the Board of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (President) as well as the Australian Booksellers Association Management Committee.
	Soraya Majidi		Soraya Majidi is the Library Team Leader at the Albany Public Library in Western Australia. She is passionate about matters relating to public library services and programs, libraries in general and the capacity of libraries to be instrumental in building communities. Soraya holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Information and Library Studies and Masters in Information Management.
	Vicki McDonald	Program committee chair	Vicki McDonald is a key player in the transformation of the library sector in Queensland. As State Librarian and CEO of State Library of Queensland she understands the need for a strong, relevant and innovative library service. Vicki’s extensive national and international experience includes executive roles with State Library of NSW and Queensland University of Technology. As State Librarian, Ms McDonald is a custodian of Queensland memory and works in partnership with public libraries and Indigenous Knowledge Centres. Her appointment as State Librarian in 2016 follows a career of advocacy that started among the bookshelves of the Dalby-Wambo public library in regional Queensland. Vicki is an active member of both ALIA and IFLA - currently serving on IFLA's Governing Board.
	Victoria Anderson		Victoria is a library consultant with Roger Henshaw Consultancy Services. Prior to joining RHCS she worked as a librarian in academic, public and State Libraries across Australia, most recently as a consultant with Public Library Services at the State Library of NSW. Victoria is a zealous supporter of all kinds of libraries but has a particular soft spot for public libraries and the communities they serve.