Brooke Doyle joined the WebJunction team in 2017 to work on Supercharged Storytimes for All. Brooke’s expertise in curriculum development and grant management serve her well at WebJunction where her latest projects include Creating Pathways to Civil Legal Justice, Digital Collections Stewardship, and the newest grant to re-imagine the ABLE courses. Brooke has a personal and professional interest in the role libraries can play in promoting social connection and has enjoyed presenting on this topic to a WebJunction audience, at ARSL, and at a staff development day.
Brooke has an Interdisciplinary Bachelor’s and a MEd. from the University of Virginia.
Keren Dali, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the LIS program, University of Denver, and a former academic librarian. With degrees in social work and information science, she’s been focusing her scholarly and teaching efforts on reading practices of multilingual readers, the reading experience of adults, and disability and workplace equity. She practiced bibliotherapy as a social worker and has been teaching it as part of her graduate LIS courses for 15 years, stressing the difference between therapeutic interventions through reading and reader services. Keren will discuss the dangers of reading, the limitations of engagement with stories, and the responsible practice of bibliotherapy in libraries.
Kaite Mediatore Stover is the Director of Readers’ Services for The Kansas City Public Library. She holds Masters degrees in Library Science and English Literature from Emporia State University. Stover is the co-editor of The Readers’ Advisory Handbook (ALA Editions 2010) with Jessica E. Moyer. She has contributed chapters to Research-Based Readers’ Advisory (ALA Editions 2008) and Integrated Advisory Service (Libraries Unlimited 2010). Stover is a founding member and Steering Committee member for LibraryReads. She is the recipient of many awards, including the 2018 Margaret E. Monroe Award, 2012 Allie Beth Martin Award, and was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2003. Follow her on Instagram @KaiteStover.
Beth Hill is the Community Resources Manager at the Kansas City, MO Public Library. Beth supervises a team of three to meet the basic needs of patrons who are struggling with homelessness through agency referrals and information. Before social work, Beth was in higher education as an instructor of speech communication and theatre for 24 years. Her study in interpersonal communication and an eventual doctorate in speech communication led to her interest in understanding how family and environment affect personal development. Her dissertation topic, A Semiotic-Phenomenological Analysis of the Self-Reflexive Communication Patterns of Adult Children of Alcoholics, led her to an interest in cognitive therapy and ultimately social work. The plan was to become a therapist but while studying for her MSW discovered the macro perspective gave her more opportunities to work with a diversity of people and settings. Since completing her MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, Beth has served as a career specialist with Job Corps, a job specialist/social worker inside Topeka, KS Correctional Facility, and a VISTA Volunteer for MO/KAN Goodwill Industries.
Mirna Herrera, MA MT-BC, CPS, born and raised in Nazareth, Israel, came to the US to pursue her MA in music therapy after completing her BA in psychology and in Musicology. During her internship at University Health (UH) in Kansas City she learned about the peer support profession which became her passion. Since then, she received the Missouri Mental Health Champion award for the work she has accomplished as the Director of a consumer run drop-in center. She then restructured peer support services at UH, creating a peer support department. And, through collaboration with the Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) and SAMHSA she piloted a career ladder option for the peer support team utilizing CHW certifications. She also expanded services into the community by creating peer navigator programs for the Kansas City public libraries. She worked as a consultant with the Mid-America ATTC expanding peer support TA’s across the region, as well as advocating and training various audiences on Naloxone and harm reduction. She is also passionate about trauma informed care, as she herself lives with PTSD, and has trained and consulted for multiple organizations across the region. She works with the Missouri Credentialing Board as a trainer and assisted in developing the current curriculum for peer certifications, and introduced two new certifications; Advanced Peer Supervision, and Recovery Support Services for Pregnant and Parenting families with Substance Use Disorders. In her most recent role, she worked as a regional behavioral health advisor for SAMHSA’s region 7 office and focused her work on peer support and recovery services regionally and nationally.
Casey Johnson is an Indigenous Harm Reductionist with more than 15 years’ experience in grassroots Harm Reduction efforts; first as a participant accessing safer use supplies and resources as an intravenous drug user, then a volunteer, and now, a professional (whatever that means). Casey is the Assistant Director of Harm Reduction & Drug User Wellness at University of Missouri St. Louis, Missouri Institute of Mental Health, Addiction Science. She is a radically soft Abolitionist that believes all people who use drugs deserve to live a self-determined life with love, respect, dignity, and justice. Casey is deeply committed to building sustainable and reparative Harm Reduction infrastructure in Missouri and beyond.