North Carolina Governor Mike Easley has appointed Connie Book, associate dean of the school of communications, to the board of the Agency for Public Telecommunications (APT), a division of the North Carolina Department of Administration. APT was founded in 1979
to serve as the media production house for state government. APT
works to increase citizen access to government and services, open
the lines of communication between state leaders and the public,
and improve government efficiency through telecommunications.
The APT board and its committees are charged with all management functions
of the agency. While the Department of Administration provides fiscal
and personnel management oversight, the board establishes APT’s
governing policies. It ensures that APT offers balanced, nonpartisan
and high quality professional services to its clients through live,
interactive programming, satellite-based teleconferences, and broadcast-quality
media productions.
Book Book is the author of “Digital Television: DTV
and the Consumer,” the first book to focus on consumers’ needs during
the nation’s transition to digital television and the emerging digital
TV technologies. She received four grants from the National Association of Broadcasters to study consumers’ digital TV habits, and studied the transition
to digital television for eight years, working with Capitol
Broadcasting in Raleigh, N.C., which pioneered the development of high
definition technology.