roytennant.com :: professional life :: speaker and writer
Roy Tennant

Internationally known speaker and writer on
library and information technology issues.

roytennant@gmail.com
707-287-5580 — Fax: 707-935-3428

Brief Bio (text) | Photos | WorldCat Identities Page | ISNI Number

Have MacBook Pro, Will Travel

Speaker

"You have a reputation for being an excellent speaker and it is a reputation well deserved." - ACRL/New England Chapter President, May 31, 2005

I have been invited to keynote conferences or meetings for many organizations, including many state library associations, the Australian Library and Information Association, the Canadian Access Conference, the China Digital Library Conference, the Florida Library Director's Conference, and the OCLC User's Council. For more information, please contact me. My current speaking schedule is available.

After participating in a number of Access conferences, and exhibiting appropriate behavior, I was declared an honorary Canadian at Access 2003, a distinction of which I am particularly proud Maple Leaf
icon.

I have taught Internet workshops for the InfoPeople Project, UC Extension, the American Society for Information Science, the California Library Association, Apple Computer, and other professional organizations and commercial companies. I have taught Internet workshops in Australia, France, Hungary, New Zealand, and Romania. I've been invited to speak at conferences in Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Writer

My latest book Technology in Libraries (2008) is a festschrift for my dear friend and mentor, Anne Grodzins Lipow. It contains ten contributed essays, a foreword, and a bibliography of Anne's published work. In keeping with the way Anne would break down barriers and do things her own way, I have made the entire book available for free download or as a hardback for purchase.

In 2004 I published Managing the Digital Library from Reed Business Press. It is comprised of the first six years of my Library Journal column, updated, link-checked and expanded.

In 2002 I edited XML in Libraries for Neal-Schuman Publishers, which details how libraries are using XML to improve library collections and services. I have also written Practical HTML: A Self-Paced Tutorial, and co-authored Crossing the Internet Threshold: An Instructional Handbook, with John Ober and Anne Lipow, which was one of the first dozen books written on the Internet.

I wrote a monthly column for Library Journal on digital libraries for ten years (1997-2007). I have also written numerous articles for professional journals on the Internet, training, and other topics relating to information technology. One of the articles for which I am most proud is "Determining our Digital Destiny", published in the January 2000 issue of American Libraries. For specific article citations, please see my resume. A piece published in Library Hi Tech is available here: A Bibliographic Metadata Infrastructure for the 21st Century and in Catalan translation. This piece was awarded the Outstanding Article for 2004 by Library Hi Tech. I also maintain a copy of a paper I wrote while at CDL on OAI harvesting issues called "Bitter Harvest: Problems & Suggested Solutions for OAI-PMH Data & Service Providers"

Other Professional Activities

I am the owner of the Web4Lib and XML4Lib electronic discussions, and the creator and editor of Current Cites, a current awareness newsletter published every month since 1990. I have also been instrumental in the development of the Simple Web Indexing Software for Humans - Enhanced (SWISH-E) software, and the Internet resource guides Librarians' Index to the Internet, and KidsClick!.

Those who would like more details on my career can read about my day job or refer to my resume.