I will work with ALA’s enterprising staff and our membership to create a wide variety of opportunities for tapping these individuals as spokespeople for libraries as the anchors and lifelines of their communities and to promote librarianship as a career choice. Authors have been enthusiastic about their participation in the National Book Festival and this goodwill is a resource of enormous potential visibility for highlighting libraries with funding decision-makers. Just a small sampling of individuals who have participated in the National Book Festival includes David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ken Burns, Geraldine Brooks, Salman Rushdie, Sanjay Gupta, Walter Dean Myers, Patricia MacLachlan, Jerry Pinkney, R. L. Stine, Neil Gaiman, Louis Sachar, Sharon Draper and Rosemary Wells.
Well-known authors can also become our advocates with the public and private sectors for increasing the salaries of library employees and by raising the profile and status of the profession. They can powerfully reinforce the message that librarianship and information navigation expertise is a “cool” career choice. We must reach out effectively to capture the interest of a diverse population so that our membership reflects the diversity of our nation. The diverse authors featured over the years at the National Book Festival can help us to do so with the communities they represent.