Brief: Carson Block has lead & loved library technology efforts for more than 25 years. He's been called a "Geek who speaks English" and occasionally compared to Ferris Bueller and Calvin (and Hobbes). Carson is dead serious about the essential and positive community impacts of libraries and focuses his consulting practice on helping libraries increase their capacity to serve patrons. Carson has served in leadership positions in the American Library Association (ALA),  the Colorado Public Library Association and others, and evangelizes libraries to SXSW Interactive and other tech communities. 

Carson is co-director (with Internet2's excellent Stephanie Stenberg) of the Gigabit Libraries and Beyond grant, which offers a free, self-service broadband improvement toolkit, especially for rural and tribal libraries (and urban too - everyone needs a hand!).  Info: http://www.internet2.edu/tgl 

Carson is the author of Library Information Systems (with Joe Matthews; Libraries Unlimited 2019) and Managing Library Technology: A LITA Guide (Rowman & Littlefield 2017). 

Less Brief: Carson Block has been a library technologist for more than 25 years – as a library worker, IT Director and a Library Technology Consultant. He has been called “a geek who speaks English” and enjoys acting as a bridge between the worlds of librarians and hard-core technologists. He has a passion to de-mystify technology for the uninitiated and to help IT professionals understand and support the goals of libraries.

As a consultant, Carson is often brought in to help solve complex institutional issues and to help align the library’s public service mission with its technology efforts to serve the needs of patrons and staff.

Carson’s work includes technology strategic planning; technology visioning and future-proofing; library service design; facilities master planning; library technology architectural programming and budgeting for new library construction and remodeling projects; facilities master planning; analysis of IT structure and staffing; IT position recruiting, digital cultural heritage projects and more.

Carson is a humorous, energetic and engaging facilitator and a frequent speaker and webinar presenter for library events and beyond – including bringing messages of library advocacy to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) since 2012 and 2013 (covered by Time magazine at http://techland.time.com/2012/03/11/sxsw-the-fate-of-libraries/). Carson also presented at SXSW Film in 2015 and 2016 and also played as a solo act during the music conference.
Carson is a is a past Director-At-Large for the American Library Association’s Association of Specialized, Governmental and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASGCLA) and former chair of ASGCLA’s Library Consultant’s Interest Group.  He is also a founding member of the Future of Libraries advisory group to ALA’s Office of Information Technology Policy, and a member of the former  21st Century Libraries Committee of the ALA’s Office of Information Technology Policy (OITP). Carson is also Past President of the Colorado Division of the Public Library Association.

Carson is the author of Library Information Systems (with Joe Matthews; Libraries Unlimited 2019) and Managing Library Technology: A LITA Guide (Rowman & Littlefield 2017)