Lillian Dabney

Lillian Dabney has been involved in every aspect of the book, from fierce reader, to book binder and is an advocate of all things literary.

She has served on the board of the Washington Book Arts Guild and Friends of the Seattle Public Library. She received a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington and worked at the Seattle Public Library as an on-call reference and readers services librarian. She began working at Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum as an adult services librarian in 2018.

From 2019-2021 Lillian served on the American Library Association Notables Award Committee that selects 25 notable titles of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for libraries across the country. In 2022, she served as a judge for the Kirkus Nonfiction award committee and in 2023 as a judge for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence Committee co-sponsored by The American Library Association and Booklist. 

Lillian facilitates a number of book discussion groups at Folio using the Great Books Foundation technique of Shared Inquiry. The groups include; 400 Years of Racism, a Classic and Modern Classic book discussion group, a Long Novel Study and an Author Complete Read Study. She is also a discussion leader for the San Francisco chapter of the Great Books. 

Currently she reviews books of literary fiction and literature in translation for Booklist.