Vice President - Senior, Family and Social Services

I have coordinated and overseen the inclusion of the following authors and speakers for the Ohio Library Council's Annual Conference(s): Jacqueline Woodson, Shaka Senghor, Gayle Forman, Cara Black, Karin Slaughter, Roxane Gay, Kwei Quartey, Jim Beard, Matt Kish, Mick Herron, Stuart Neville, Mindy McGinnis, Lydia Netzer, Adam Silvera, Jasmine Warga, Shelley Shepard Gray, Mary Curran Hackett, Dot Christenson, Marian Spencer, Michelle Houts, and Julie Rubini, amongst others.

As the Media Relations Coordinator, Ben serves as the primary media contact and spokesperson for the library, as well as lead content writer for the Marketing Department; promoting the Library’s brand, programs and events via digital and print platforms. Ben is also responsible for the coordination of Authors! Authors!, as well as other special events and projects.

Story matters at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. We collect them, celebrate them, preserve them, project them, and most importantly, connect people with them. By nurturing textual, visual, digital, and technological literacy abilities in our community, we hope to stimulate interest and involvement in peoples’ own personal narratives and enrich their lives.

The Toledo Lucas County Public Library has hosted the Authors! Authors! and Open Book lecture series for over 20 years. Simply stated, our primary intension is to inspire the community by hosting exciting and talented individuals. Our community enthusiastically supports this series and their library (we regularly sellout our events). Guests included: Alan Alda, W. Kamau Bell, Bill Nye, Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman, Tucker Carlson, James Carville, Gloria Steinem, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Matt Groening, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough, Anna Quindlen, Stan Lee, Anita Hill, Ron Chernow, Isabel Allende, Neil Gaiman, Sebastian Junger, Nicholas Sparks, Bob Woodward, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Ray Bradbury, John Updike, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., P.J. O'Rourke, Sherman Alexie, Zadie Smith, Henry Winkler, Sue Grafton, Marjane Satrapi, Elizabeth Gilbert, Cokie Roberts, Sandra Cisneros, Mark Z. Danielewski, Lee Child, and Jacques Pepin, to name a few.

programming, collection development and management, cataloguing, tech. instruction and support, database instruction, community relations and outreach, reference, and research.