Forum Network

Faran is vice president and director of planning for finance and operations in Houghton Mifflin's trade and reference division. She managed the startup of an in-house electronic licensing group, as well as domestic and international distribution arrangements, which was instrumental in rebuilding the financial health of the division. Before joining Houghton Mifflin in 1996, Faran was senior vice president, chief financial officer and general manager at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe College, a certificate from the Radcliffe Publishing Course and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of nine books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including *Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture*, *Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture* and *From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games*. His newest books include *Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide *and Fans, *Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture *. Until recently, Jenkins wrote a monthly column and blogged about media and cultural change for *Technology Review Online*. A longtime advocate of games culture, he currently co-authors a column with Kurt Squire for *Computer Games magazine* which seeks to promote innovation and diversity in game design. Jenkins recently developed a white paper on the future of media literacy education for the MacArthur Foundation, which is leading to a three year project to develop curricular materials to help teachers and parents better prepare young people for full participation in contemporary culture. Jenkins has a B.A. in Political Science and Journalism from Georgia State University, a MA in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has taught at MIT for more than 16 years, where he is also housemaster of Senior House dormitory.

Clifford Lynch has been the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) since 1997. CNI includes about 200 member organizations concerned with the use of information technology and networked information to enhance scholarship and intellectual productivity. Prior to joining CNI, Lynch spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last 10 as Director of Library Automation. Lynch is an adjunct professor at Berkeley's School of Information. He is a past president of the American Society for Information Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization. Lynch currently serves on the National Digital Strategy Advisory Board of the Library of Congress, Microsoft's Technical Computing Science Advisory Board, the board of the New Media Consortium, and the Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access; he was a member of the National Research Council committees that published *The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age* and *Broadband: Bringing Home the Bits*.

David Dawson is the senior ICT Adviser within the Libraries and Information Society Team (LIST) of the UK Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council. He studied archaeology at Durham University. He completed the Museum Studies Course at Leicester in 1985, later becoming an Associate of the Museums Association in 1988.

Janice Erlbaum is the author of *Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir* (Villard, March '06), and *Have You Found Her: A Memoir* (Villard, Feb. '08). Her poetry and prose has been featured in anthologies including *Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe*, *The Bust Guide to The New Girl Order*, *The Best American Erotic Poems From 1800 To The Present*, *The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir*, and *Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain* from the Poemfone Poets. She was a contributor to* BUST* magazine from 1994 through 2007 and has also written for the websites McSweeney's, Nerve, and Nextbook. Her work has been featured in *Glamour*, *Redbook*, *Marie Claire*, *Elle*, *Elle UK*, *Entertainment Weekly*, *The New York Post*, *The New York Daily News*, and *New York Times*. Janice teaches memoir writing and has addressed audiences at colleges, coffee houses, and theaters across the east coast. She lives in her native New York City with her domestic partner, Bill Scurry, and their three cats.

Angela Nissel is author of the national best-selling comedic memoirs *The Broke Diaries* and *Mixed*. In addition to books, she is a co-executive producer and writer for NBC's medical sitcom *Scrubs* and executive producer of an in-development television project with Halle Berry and Vincent Cirricionne. Angela was born a lower-middle class light-brown child in Philadelphia. She even stayed in that fair city for college, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in medical anthropology. That degree led to a stellar career as a temp for the IRS, a "melter" in a metalworking shop, and as a "sleep apnea auditor" working the 12AM to 8AM shift at a local hospital.

John Frankfurt, Educational Technologist at Columbia University's Center for New Media, Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). He is also the Project Manager of a web site based on Vaclav Havel's residency at Columbia University.