Taylor Willingham

From Compendium of Legislation

Taylor Willingham founded Texas Forums, an initiative of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in 2003. She teaches Change Management and Fund Development for the highly acclaimed graduate library and information sciences distance education program at the University of Illinois. Willingham is a research associate for the Kettering Foundation, a former board member for the National Issues Forums Institute, and is a consultant on public engagement processes for organizations such as the National Coalition for Literacy, American Library Association, the State Library Systems of California and Texas, Bill Moyers Public Affairs Television, University of Pennsylvania, and Public Libraries.

She has been faculty at over fifty National Issues Forums Public Policy Institutes and two International Deliberative Democracy Workshops, working with participants from countries like Croatia, Tajikistan, Russia, Colombia, and other emerging democracies. She has traveled to Russia three times conducting training sessions on the role of deliberative forums in democracy in Russia and conducted a four day workshop for government employees in Thailand.

She has authored three book chapters:

• Willingham, Taylor. “Literacy Internships: Take a Plunge into the Deep End.” Internship Opportunities for Library Students. (working title) Ed. Cynthia Mediavilla. Sage Publications.
• Melville, Keith, Taylor Willingham, and John Dedrick. "National Issues Forums." Deliberative Democracy Handbook. Ed. Peter Levine, and John Gastil. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Chapter 3.
• Willingham, Taylor. "Real World to Classroom and Back: Confessions of a Reluctant Instructor." American Libraries June/July 2000: 70-72.

She is also published in numerous journals and professional magazines.

Her current area of interest is in Civic and Social Entrepreneurship, the role of libraries in community, and social networking, technology, citizen journalism, citizen engagement in public policy, and web 2.0 applications to modern democracy and social movements. She is a 2007 recipient of a fellowship to conduct research, author articles for academic journals, present at conferences and develop an interdisciplinary course on Civic Entrepreneurship in Public Institutions from the University of Illinois Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership.