Paul Kennedy, award winning broadcaster, writer and host of the popular CBC Radio program Ideas, will be keynote speaker for APLA 2009.

Mr. Kennedy will open the conference with a presentation entitled "Making Books Work"

Paul Kennedy has written and produced over 200 documentaries, beginning in 1977. He received a B.A. in history from Queen's University, a Master of Literature history from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and has been associated with CBC Radio's Ideas "since its early days" and has hosted the program since 1999. His work has covered a wide range of topics from the fur trade, war crimes, Luddism, marathon running, salt, Jerusalem, to oysters and single malt Scotch whisky.

Paul Kennedy's work includes "Lost Innocence: The Children of World War II" a documentary which won the Peabody Award in 1989, as well as an ACTA award and NYC Festival Awards. Mr. Kennedy received the 2005 Ocean Science Journalism Award from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for the Ideas eight-part series "Learning from the Oceans." Mr. Kennedy shared a Gemini Award in 2006 for Best News Magazine Segment for "Suzanne", which aired on CBC News: The National.

The CBC Radio program Ideas covers social issues, culture and the arts, geopolitics, history, biography, science and technology, and the humanities, and features documentaries in which thoughts are gathered, contexts explored, and connections made, as well as presenting the annual Massey Lecture series. The program has an important place in Canadian intellectual life, and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2005.