Adjunct Assistant Professor Ellen Knutson (MS '02, PhD '08) was part of the U.S. delegation to the Dartmouth Conference: U.S.-Russia Citizen Dialogue in the 21st Century, which took place on December 3-5 in Dayton, Ohio. The Dartmouth Conference is the longest continuous bilateral dialogue between citizens of Russia and the U.S. focused on the changing nature of the relationship between the two countries.
At the conference, Knutson shared the outcomes of the third working meeting of the U.S.-Russia Dialogue on the Civic Role of Libraries in the 21st Century, which was initiated in 2017 by the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Held annually, the Dialogue provides delegates from the two countries the opportunity to share, discuss, and document current strategies to work with citizens to shape not only the library of the future but also their communities.
The 2019 meeting, held at the University of Illinois on September 25-26, brought together twenty library leaders and specialists from five Russian regions and seven U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Participants discussed ways libraries can be strategic players in the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Knutson is a research associate with the Kettering Foundation and teaches International Librarianship (IS 585) at the iSchool. Along with Knutson, Assistant Director of MS/LIS Advising Karla Lucht (MS '07) also participated in the Library Dialogue.