Schedule
Conference at a Glance
Welcome to the 2007 WAAL Conference
Tuesday, April 17 | Wednesday, April 18 | Thursday, April 19 | Friday, April 20
Welcome to Scholarship Recipients attending the WAAL Conference:
Maria Brandt, UW-Madison SLIS
Heather Damitz, UW-Sheboygan
Renee Disch, UW-Madison
Sara Krouse, Carthage College
Claire Rasmussen, UW-Madison SLIS
Jacqueline Zook, College Library, UW-Madison
Print a Copy of the Entire Conference Schedule (PDF)
Welcome to the 2007 WAAL Conference!
Discover WAAL @ Wisconsin Dells calls you to set aside a few days from your busy work life to reinvigorate yourself, reconnect with colleagues, make new library friends, and most importantly, discover new ideas and ways of thinking about library service.
Wisconsin Dells as a vacation destination offers something for just about everyone—water parks and roller coasters for the thrill seeker, downtown shops and discount malls for the shopper, scenic hiking trails and river trips for the nature lover. The 2007 WAAL Conference is just as diverse, offering a variety of programs that will help us all discover something new about academic libraries, whether we spend our days working in technical areas or working directly with patrons, buying materials or balancing budgets, configuring systems or teaching students how to use them.
The 2007 Conference Planning Committee, ably chaired by Jim Buckett of UW-Madison and Sylvia Contreras of Edgewood College, has organized an outstanding conference that will allow you to discover news ways of thinking about library service. Luncheon speakers Emily Auerbach and Mike Norman are sure to inspire and entertain you. Over 35 program presenters, from public and private colleges and universities both big and small across the state, will cover a variety of diverse and timely topics that will surely help you discover something new about academic library service. Poster sessions and a reception sponsored by WAAL and the H.H. Bennett Studio and History Center round out the conference and provide an opportunity for you to spend some one-on-one time with your colleagues and friends.
Welcome to the Wisconsin Dells and to Discover WAAL @ Wisconsin Dells. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with colleagues, welcoming new librarians to the conference and to our outstanding organization and, yes, buying some fudge to take home and savor.
Valerie Malzacher
Chair, Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians
Luncheon Speakers
Wednesday, April 18
Wednesday Luncheon, Noon - 1:45 PM in the Grand Ballroom
Michael Norman
Exploring Haunted America
Author, educator and playwright Michael Norman is an Illinois native who now lives and works in River Falls, Wis. A professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls, Norman created with his late co-author Beth Scott the best-selling Haunted America series of true ghost tales from the United States and Canada. His newest book, Haunted Homeland, was published in the fall of 2006 by Forge Books/Tom Doherty Associates. Haunted Homeland takes readers on a coast-to-coast ghost trip with over 100 ghost stories from 30 states and Canada – from a legendary haunted Russian castle in Sitka, Alaska to the multiple ghosts in a crumbling Mississippi mansion. Illinois readers will come across legendary phantom hitchhikers in downstate Mount Vernon and Lebanon, and discover how one of the most notorious Chicago murder trials included the ghostly presence of the female victim, killed in a most hideous manner by her philandering husband.
Norman and Scott began their collaboration with Haunted Wisconsin (Trails Media) in 1980 (rev. ed., 2001), and continued on with Haunted Heartland, (Warner Books) named in 1987 as one of the outstanding books for young adults by the University of Iowa. Following Beth Scott’s death in 1994, Norman finished work the pair had begun on Haunted America and Historic Haunted America (both Tor/Forge Books). More recently, in 2002, Tor/Forge Books published Norman’s Haunted Heritage and now in 2006 Haunted Homeland.
All the books in the Haunted America series remain in print. He is at work on a collection of Minnesota ghost stories to be published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press/Borealis Books.
Norman is also the co-author of WordWise, vocabulary building books published in September 2006 by MINDWARE, Inc., a leading publisher and distributor of educational materials.
Michael Norman was born in Macomb, Ill. He has a master’s degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. He is a former high school teacher, sportswriter and radio news director.
He was a professor and chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin –River Falls for nearly thirty years before turning to a career as a full time writer. He taught a wide variety of courses in both print and broadcast reporting. He was instrumental in developing a new interdisciplinary major in marketing communications, the first such program in the United States. He also served as director of the UW River Falls Press and director of the Midwest Writers’ Conference for many years.
As a playwright, he authored the musical play Entering the Circle: The Lives of Pioneer Farm Women, based on the letters, diaries and memoirs of rural Midwestern farm women. The play was funded by the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission. His Nye and Riley Tonight! based on the 19th Century Chautauqua programs of humorist Bill Nye and noted Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley, was produced in 1996. As an actor in summer stock, he has performed leading roles in such plays as The Rocky Horror Show, On Golden Pond, You Can’t Take It With You, My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, The Foreigner, The Miracle Worker, Love Letters and many others. He was recently named managing director of the St. Croix Valley Summer Theatre.
He is a member of The Authors Guild, The Dramatists Guild and the Society of Midland Authors.
Thursday, April 19
Thursday Luncheon, Noon - 1:45 PM in the Grand Ballroom
Emily Auerbach, English Professor, UW-Madison
The UW Odyssey Project: Transforming Lives Through the Humanities
Emily Auerbach is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Project Director of "The Courage to Write" series of radio documentaries on women writers. She has received numerous teaching and arts awards from the University of Wisconsin and broadcasting awards for "The Courage to Write" series.
Emily Auerbach reaches not only undergraduates through her campus classes on 19th-century literature but also hundreds of thousands of nontraditional students through lectures at public libraries, Elderhostels, prisons, retirement centers, schools, and service clubs. Over 4,000 people attended "Jane Austen in the 21st Century," a 40-event festival she directed for the UW Center for the Humanities (see http://www.humanities.wisc.edu). This festival was honored with the 2001 Governor's Award in the Humanities.
One new outreach course she directs is called the Odyssey Project, a free humanities course for low-income adults. She also serves as co-host of "University of the Air," a one-hour program broadcast statewide on Wisconsin Public Radio, Sundays 4-5 pm, featuring interviews with faculty in a variety of disciplines (see http://www.wpr.org for University of the Air broadcast schedule).
She first became interested in the audio medium as a way to spread literature to wider audiences when she was hired in 1985 by the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting Foundation to oversee development of 24 radio programs on 19th and 20th century writers that could be used both for broadcast and as material in Independent Learning courses (see LSA Independent Learning, IL English 167-168). With grant funding, she then began "The Courage to Write," a new series of radio programs and written guides about women writers who overcame tremendous obstacles in order to become authors (see LSA Independent Learning, IL English 249). Emily Auerbach serves as project director, scriptwriter, and narrator for this award-winning series. She has just completed a book entitled Searching for Jane Austen for the University of Wisconsin Press (Fall 2004), and has published articles and textbooks on 19th century British and American writers.
Odyssey Project Website: http://www.odyssey.wisc.edu/Pages/about.htm
Special Activities & Events
Wednesday, April 18
8:00pm - 10:00pm
Mt. Rainier
Games Night
Come get your game on! Join a dedicated table with friends and colleagues...
Scrabble (several boards will be available depending on the number of intererested participants)
Trivial Pursuit (standard edition) or try your hand at a special edition set--Star Wars or Wizard of Oz...individuals or team-play accommodated.
Apples to Apples fun, group party game (easily learned and quickly played)--by Out of the Box Publishing.
Or, try something new...conference committee and friends have gathered together a selection of other games...come see what's available.
Snacks will be available. Prize drawing during the event.
Thursday, April 19
5:30pm - 7:30 pm
Grand Ballroom
Bennett Studio Photography Reception