About the Speakers

Kenneth L. Alford is a professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU. After serving almost thirty years on active duty in the United States Army, he retired as a colonel in 2008. While on active military duty, Ken served in numerous assignments, including the Pentagon, eight years teaching computer science and information systems engineering at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and four years as a professor of behavioral science and department chair at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. He earned a bachelor of arts in political science from Brigham Young University, a master of arts in international relations from the University of Southern California, a master of computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in computer science from George Mason University. He has published and presented on a wide variety of American and Church history, scriptural, pedagogical, computer science, information systems engineering, military science, organizational behavior, and strategic leadership subjects during his career. Ken and his late wife, Sherilee, have four wonderful children and twenty delightful grandchildren.

James V. D'Arc, Ph.D., served for many years as the Curator of the BYU Motion Picture Archive, the BYU Film Music Archive and the Arts and Communications Archive of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University. He has lectured internationally on motion picture history and has taught film courses at BYU.

Michael Gates is the Audiovisual lab manager at the BYU Library in Provo, Utah.  He is responsible for the digitization of legacy audio and video media in the library.  While at BYU he spent 2 years as a Digital Preservation Specialist for the Library validating, ingesting and monitoring all digital objects submitted to the permanent digital repository.  Prior to BYU, Michael spent 2 years in micrographics digitization, 8 years in audio visual digitization, AV born digital validation and normalization for the Church History Library.  He holds a master's degree in Sound Recording technology from the University of Massachusetts. 

Mike Goates is the Life & Geological Sciences Librarian at BYU and currently serves as chair of the Science & Engineering Department in the Harold B. Lee Library. He has an MLS from the University of North Texas and an MS in Biology from BYU. Mike previously worked as an environmental health scientist for the Salt Lake County Health Department and as a wildlife technician for the U.S. Forest Service and Grand Canyon National Park. Mike regularly helps faculty and students at all stages of research and writing in the Departments of Biology, Plant & Wildlife Sciences, Public Health, and Geology.

Ben Harry is the Media Arts History and Audiovisual Materials Archivist at BYU. A media historian and audiovisual archivist, Ben has previously served in this capacity for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  His research interests include archival maintenance of audiovisual materials, digitization and access to archival materials, and historical records and research of radio, television, and the cinema.

Maggie Gallup Kopp is the Curator of Rare Books at L. Tom Perry Special Collections in the Harold B. Lee Library, where she is responsible for the European historical collections and rare British and American literature. Maggie holds an MA in Medieval studies from Fordham University and an MS in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

John Murphy is the Curator for 19th and 20th Century Latter Day Saint Movements & Western Americana Manuscripts at L. Tom Perry Special Collections. He has a BA in History from Brigham Young University, an MSLIS degree from Simmons College, and an MA in Comparative History from Brandeis University. John previously worked as a Special Collections Librarian at the University of Arizona and began his career at BYU in 2002. His research interests include documentary editing, the international history of The Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints, and the history of Latter-day Saint popular culture. He enjoys skiing, hiking, and traveling with his family.

Bruce A. Van Orden is an emeritus professor of church history and doctrine in Religious Education at Brigham Young University. He taught many classes in the various scriptures, church history, and family history. Bruce has focused on writing biographies for his and his wife's ancestors as well as publishing biographies of pioneer church leaders W. W. Phelps and George Reynolds. He has served twice as a bishop, on five high councils, and as director of the Springville Utah Family History Center. In retirement, Bruce continues his professional activities. He is writing a biography of Isaac C. Haight and regularly teaches BYU Pathway religion classes by Zoom to students in Africa and Europe. Bruce and his wife have five children and ten grandchildren, to whom they give their sincere devotion.

Greg Seppi is the curator of the 19th and 20th Century Americana Collection in L. Tom Perry Special Collections. He holds a BA in History from BYU, an MA in the History of Medicine from Oxford Brookes University, and an MLIS from San Jose State University. His interests include the history of printing in the American West, Church history, and the history of bias in the American West. He has written several articles and presented at a number of conferences on these topics, including the annual meeting of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association), the Mormon History Association, and of course the A. Dean Larsen Book Collecting Conference.

Craig S. Smith is a retired archaeologist living in the Salt Lake Valley. In addition to archaeological publications, Smith has contributed historical articles to the Utah Historical Quarterly, BYU Studies, Overland Journal, and the Journal of Mormon History. He has edited a book on the letters of Juanita Brooks published by the University of Utah Press. One of his major interests in the collecting of Utah/Mormon books. He has prepared a history and bibliography of the Juvenile Instructor Office that will be published by Greg Kofford Books.

Tyler Thorsted is the Digital Preservation Manager at the HBLL at Brigham Young University. He previously worked on the Preservation team at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. Tyler has a degree in Technology Management and has a love for file formats. Before his career in Libraries and Archives, Tyler worked in the commercial printing industry where he learned the value of high quality scanning and color management. His hobbies include photography and collecting Church History related items dealing with the Church in Asia.

Brian Wages, MA, MLiS is the History and Political Science Librarian at BYU. A native of Idaho Falls, he completed undergraduate degrees at BYU in History and English. With graduate degrees in History and Library Science, he’s worked at the BYU Library for over twenty years. Current research interests center on mid-nineteenth century American diplomacy and western development, popularization of history in media, of course, film history.