Amy Garmer - Participant

Amy Garmer is the Director of the Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries, a multi-year initiative on the future of public libraries that brings together leaders and innovators from diverse stakeholder groups to foster new collaborations with libraries and to re-envision more equitable community knowledge and civic infrastructures for the 21st century.

She is the author of Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries (Aspen Institute, 2014), as well as other reports of the Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries and the Communications and Society Program. She has appeared on NPR’s Studio 1A program and is a speaker and moderator for conferences and workshops, including CENIC (Corporation for Network Initiatives in California), American Library Association, Digital Public Library of America, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, Carnegie UK Trust, San Jose State University, Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, Institute for Museum and Library Services, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and International City/County Management Association.

Garmer has spent two decades in public policy at the leading edge of new media, communications and information technologies and has written widely on subjects ranging from education and technology, the future of journalism, advertising and ethnic media, and advancing freedom and connectivity in the Western Hemisphere. She has served as Associate Director of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and, as Director of Journalism Projects, Garmer designed and managed US and international journalism conferences and events examining the practice of journalism at the intersection of critical domestic and international issues. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Garmer served on the staff of US Senator Sam Nunn. She has degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin.