Strengthening Library Ecosystems

Dorcas Hand, MLS, is a retired school librarian from Houston, Texas, who is a co-chair of Students Need Libraries in Houston ISD, a grassroots advocacy effort to return school librarians and libraries to all campuses in Houston Independent School District; this local advocacy work has informed much of her ecosystem thinking. She chaired the ALA Ecosystem Initiative Task Force to write the Ecosystem Toolkit and Continuum and remains a member of ALA's COLA Ecosystem Subcommittee, presenting on ecosystem topics often. Sara Kelly Johns, MLS, a member of ALA's COLA Ecosystem Subcommittee, is an online instructor for Syracuse University's iSchool graduate program. Sara was a longtime school librarian in northern New York's Adirondack Mountains. She was a public library trustee in two libraries and taught an undergraduate library instruction course at the Feinberg Library at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh. A past president of the American Association of School Librarians and the New York Library Association, she is active in ALA Council. With Susan D. Ballard, she coauthored Elevating the School Library: Building Positive Perceptions through Brand Behavior (2023).

Michelle Robertson, MLIS, PhD, is currently the program coordinator and assistant professor for library media in education at the University of Central Oklahoma. She is a member of ALA's Ecosystem Subcommittee as well as ALA's Public Awareness Committee. She has worked for several years to build the library ecosystem in Oklahoma. Collaboration to build awareness of library services across library communities is her passion.

Eryn Duffee, MLIS, is a teacher librarian near Seattle, Washington, who has led advocacy committees and who founded the Tennessee Library Ecosystem Coalition. Eryn's impactful work earned Tennessee the Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Award. Recognized with the Library Journal Movers & Shakers Award in 2023, Eryn is currently on a mission to give Washington state students equitable access to certified teacher-librarians.