Patricia A. Steele has been named Dean of the University of Maryland Libraries.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
The University of Maryland has named as its new dean of university libraries, Patricia A. Steele—a national leader in the Google Project and other efforts to digitize collections creating wider access to universities' information resources. Steele, described as a visionary and dynamic leader, currently directs the libraries at Indiana University Bloomington. She begins at Maryland on Sept. 1.
"Librarians offer an important voice in this emerging technology environment and Maryland is an especially exciting place to work right now," says Steele. "The University has a dynamic vision for the future and appreciates the role libraries can play in achieving it. We'll be able to collaborate with top researchers on campus, and our enviable proximity to the nation's capital will give great access to the many leadership organizations." . . .
Among Steele's national leadership activities:
- Member of the top-level academic library team renegotiating with Google in the project to digitize and make freely available on the Web millions of books;
- As member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a group of academic libraries working to incorporate academic collections in the Google Project, leads the effort to digitize project's first "collection of distinction";
- Co-founded the HathiTrust, a shared digital library of leading research libraries;
- Founding board member of CLOCKSS—a joint venture between scholarly publishers and research libraries to preserve Web-based scholarly publications.
"Pat Steele is a major appointment for Maryland that will keep us at the leading edge of information," says University of Maryland president C.D. Mote, Jr. "Her name is magic among librarians because she has led academic libraries through the changing technological landscape. She's at the forefront while simultaneously honoring the essential role that keeps libraries at the center of the research enterprise."
Read more about it at "Dean Patricia Steele to Depart."