Kristin LaLonde is an Access Services Librarian and Circulation Department Manager at the Chippewa River District Library in Mt. Pleasant, MI. Kristin received her MLIS from Wayne State University in 2011. She began her library career as a Special Librarian at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI and has worked in multiple kinds of libraries throughout her life. Most librarians from the Internet probably know her as @shinyinfo on Twitter. Her hobbies include watching Murder, She Wrote, giving people a hard time and bro-ing out.
Tom is the author and illustrator of the Origami Yoda series, in addition to many other great novels for young readers. His next book, Art2-D2’s Guide to Folding and Doodling, will be on bookstore shelves in March 2013.
It was a great pleasure to team up with Allison and Michelle for this special project. Be sure to check out the first part of this series over on their site, with author Kirby Larson and add their show to your podcast-listening queue today!
Librarian Gene Ambaum and cartoonist Bill Barnes began publishing Unshelved on February 16, 2002. They have eight published collections.
Gene Ambaum (by Bill Barnes)
Gene Ambaum uses a pen name because he’s scared of his own shadow. He is so good at making fun of strange, difficult customers in Unshelved because he is the strangest, most difficult customer of all. He taught English overseas because no one there was in a position to criticize his spelling. If he ever starts another comic strip it will be about poop, because that’s what he spends most of his time thinking about.
Bill Barnes (by Gene Ambaum)
Bill Barnes loves librarians, show tunes, and meat. He can count his toes without taking off his shoes. Over the past eight years, he has tried to convince Gene that the meaning of “partnership” is doing what he says 99% of the time. He can often be seen wandering the floor at trade shows playing “The Final Countdown” on his ukulele Death Adder. In his spare time he draws Unshelved and writes a comic about the software industry, Not Invented Here.
Circulating Ideas 