Category: People in the News

Paula T. Kaufman Named 2010 Hugh C. Atkinson Award Winner

Paula T. Kaufman, Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Dean of Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has won the 2010 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award, which is sponsored by ACRL, ALCTS, LLAMA, and LITA.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Named in honor of one of the pioneers of library automation, the Atkinson Award recognizes an academic librarian who has made significant contributions in the area of library automation or management and has made notable improvements in library services or research. . . .

Kaufman has held a variety of positions over the course of her career. In addition to serving as head of the Business and Economics Library and director of the Library Services group at Columbia University, she was acting head of the East Asian Library in 1982 and acting vice-president for information technology and university librarian from 1987-88. During her tenure at Columbia, Kaufman was involved in the development of the university's Scholarly Information Center, a merger of the library and academic information technology. In 1987, Kaufman resisted the FBI's request to report on the reading habits of Columbia library patrons with last names or accents from "hostile countries." Her actions were instrumental in making the FBI's Library Awareness Program public. Kaufman additionally served as dean of libraries at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1988-99.

In her current position at UIUC, Kaufman has worked with the library faculty and staff to re-envision the future, form new alliances and cultivate an environment of creative problem solving. Under her direction, the library launched a highly successful capital campaign, established a formal preservation and conservation program, led the state of Illinois in digitizing collections, celebrated the library's 11 millionth volume and addressed the issues of how to support scholarship and teaching in the digital age through developing new models to deliver 21st-century services. In 2006, the provost of the University of Illinois tapped Kaufman to serve as the university's interim chief information officer. In this assignment, she increased communication among technology staff and reconnected the information technology department with the rest of the campus through focusing on its service mission.

She has additionally played key roles in governance and policymaking at a number of organizations, including serving on or leading the boards of directors of the Center for Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Council of Library and Information Resources, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the Digital Library Federation and the Society for Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

Kaufman received her AB in Economics from Smith College, MBA from the University of New Haven and MS in Library Service from the School of Library Service at Columbia University.

Gary Marchionini Named Dean of School of Information and Library Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill

Dr. Gary Marchionini, Cary C. Boshamer Professor at the School of Information and Library Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been appointed Dean of that school effective April 1, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Gary Marchionini is a distinguished faculty member whose extraordinary academic background is internationally renowned," said Chancellor Holden Thorp. "He is the ideal person to lead our School of Information and Library Science into this new decade when information and technology have never been more important in our society."

Added Bruce Carney, interim executive vice chancellor and provost, "Gary Marchionini knows the School of Information and Library Science and our University exceedingly well. He has the support from within the school to keep it a national leader."

A Carolina faculty member since 1998, Marchionini heads the school's Interaction Design Laboratory and chairs its personnel committee. He serves on the Campus Research Computing Committee and has helped lead numerous campus initiatives since arriving at Carolina. Last spring, he was nominated by his students and selected as the school's Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

He is president of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, an international organization of professionals who focus on improving access to information. Marchionini is the chair of the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee. He previously was editor-in-chief of the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) "Transactions on Information Systems" from 2002 to 2008, has served on more than a dozen editorial boards and is editor of the Morgan-Claypool book series, "Information Concepts, Retrieval and Services."

Marchionini has published more than 200 articles, book chapters and technical reports on topics related to digital libraries, information seeking, usability of personal health records, multimedia browsing strategies and personal identity in cyberspace. He has been awarded numerous grants from the National Science Foundation and other foundations, as well as research awards from companies including Microsoft, IBM and Google. He is the author of "Information Seeking in Electronic Environments," part of a Cambridge University Press series.

Marchionini earned a doctorate in curriculum development, focusing on mathematics education in 1981, and a master's degree in secondary mathematics education from Wayne State University in 1974. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and English from Western Michigan University in 1971.

Before arriving at UNC, he was a faculty member at the University of Maryland for 15 years. He served on the faculty and as a researcher at Wayne State from 1978 to 1983 and taught mathematics at the East Detroit Public Schools for seven years.

M. Sue Baughman Named ARL Associate Deputy Executive Director

M. Sue Baughman has been named Association of Research Libraries Associate Deputy Executive Director.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Baughman is currently Assistant Dean for Organizational Development at the University of Maryland, College Park. She will assume her role at ARL on March 29.

The primary role of the Associate Deputy Executive Director is to promote and facilitate the strategic development of ARL policies and programs. The position carries a mix of responsibilities revolving around issue analysis and program development, strategic positioning and message development, and practical management and coordination accomplished working closely with the ARL Executive Director and Board of Directors.

In her current position, Baughman works with over 200 library staff in every facet of the University of Maryland Libraries. Her duties focus on the development needs of individual staff, teams, and work groups, and the organization as a whole. She understands not only the work staff does and the services they provide but also the interrelationships that are in place across a large organization. This broad perspective has enabled her to be an effective change agent and leader. She has been at the University of Maryland since 1995 serving in a variety of roles including, Manager of McKeldin Library Public Services, Assistant Dean for Organizational Development, and Interim Director of Collection Development and Special Collections.

In her career, Baughman has held positions at a variety of types of libraries and library systems and has served on committees of numerous library associations. In all of these positions, she has been committed to finding innovative solutions to challenging problems. Her skills and experiences in leadership, program coordination, and project management will be valuable assets for ARL.

David Prosser Named Executive Director of RLUK

David Prosser has been named the Executive Director of RLUK (Research Libraries UK).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

RLUK is very pleased to announce that David Prosser has been appointed Executive Director. David joins us from SPARC Europe, where his leadership and advocacy skills have played a critical role in the success of the European Open Access movement.

The Chair of RLUK, Dr Mark Brown of the University of Southampton said: "We are delighted that David will be joining us as our new Executive Director. David brings ten years' experience of shaping strategic thinking for an active membership organisation, and encouraging partnerships and collaborations which can bring together librarians, publishers, and funders. We look forward to David playing a key role in delivering our exciting new strategy."

David Prosser said: "It is a great honour to join RLUK as the new Executive Director. These are exciting times for research libraries in terms of new delivery of content, use of physical space and the ways in which researchers and students use our collections. They are also potentially difficult times as public spending tightens and decisions need to be made on priorities for the future. Now, more than ever, the UK community needs to speak with a strong voice to ensure that the case for research libraries is heard. We also need to look for innovative collaborative solutions for budgetary issues. I look forward to working with the Board, members, and RLUK staff to address these issues and help fulfill the RLUK vision of ensuring that the UK should have the best research library support in the world."

Dean of University Libraries Candidates Interview at Indiana University

Candidates for the Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries position at Indiana University are interviewing this week. The candidates are Brenda Johnson (Dean of University Libraries at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and Diane Parr Walker (Deputy University Librarian at the University of Virginia).

Read more about it at "Library Dean Candidates Visit Today."

Martin Halbert Named Dean of Libraries at the University of North Texas

Martin Halbert, Director for Digital Innovations at the Emory University Libraries, has been named Dean of Libraries at the University of North Texas Libraries. Halbert will also have a joint appointment as an associate professor in the UNT College of Information. UNT was recently named as one of the "Up-and-coming National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in its "Best Colleges 2010" issue.

Halbert is widely known for his innovative work in the MetaScholar Initiative and, more recently, the MetaArchive Cooperative.

He has co-edited The Information Commons: A Field Guide, edited or co-edited several proceedings, and authored or coauthored a number of papers on digital library topics, including "Combined Searching of Web and OAI Digital Library Resources," "Digital Library Federation (DLF) Aquifer Project," "Findings from the Mellon Metadata Harvesting Initiative," "Integrating ETD Services into Campus Institutional Repository Infrastructures Using Fedora," "Lessons from the Information Commons Frontier," "An Initial Evaluation of Automated Organization for Digital Library Browsing," "The MetaArchive Cooperative: A Collaborative Approach to Distributed Digital Preservation," and "The Metascholar Initiative: AmericanSouth.Org and MetaArchive.Org."

He holds a Ph.D. from Emory University, where his dissertation was on "New Models for Research Libraries in the Digital Age" (excerpt). He also holds an M.L.I.S. from the University of Texas and a B.A. from Rice University.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Halbert replaces Dr. B. Donald Grose, who retired from the dean position in July after serving 21 years with the UNT Libraries. Dr. Judith Forney, dean of UNT's School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management, will continue as interim dean of the libraries until Halbert arrives at UNT.

In his position with Emory University Libraries, Halbert has served as the principal investigator for digital library services and research projects totaling $6.1 million, including the Transatlantic Slave Trade Voyages and Origins projects, which offer comprehensive access to primary data from four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. Halbert is also president of MetaArchive Cooperative, an international consortium of research libraries and institutes that preserve digital archives in partnership with the Library of Congress, as part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.

"Dr. Halbert's strengths lie in digital library services, innovative ideas, strategic planning and management of multiple libraries on one university campus," said Dr. Wendy K. Wilkins, UNT provost and vice president for academic affairs. "We are delighted that he also has a national reputation among funding agencies and leading digital and technological library organizations, and we look forward to welcoming him to UNT."

Halbert, a native of Houston, said the UNT Libraries' national reputation as a leader in digital projects and services attracted him to the university.

"Libraries are changing with the times, and UNT is at the forefront of that. I am looking forward to being part of the growth of the UNT Libraries, and I'm delighted to be part of the UNT community," he said. "I'm also happy to be returning to Texas, where I grew up."

At Emory, Halbert is an adjunct professor in the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts, where he developed a doctoral certificate in digital scholarship and new media, an interdisciplinary credential that provides graduate students with expertise in new forms of research and publication using digital media.

He is also the principal investigator of the Librarians for the Digital Age Master of Library Science program for north Georgia, a partnership with UNT's College of Information and the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of four historically African-American colleges in the city.

In Librarians for the Digital Age, 60 students from north Georgia are earning master of library science degrees, with courses taught by UNT faculty members in four-day institutes and online. The students began the program in the fall of 2008 and are scheduled to graduate in September 2010.

"The students are excited about being part of a premiere program like the UNT College of Information," Halbert said. "The program is intended to provide a robust next generation of librarians from diverse backgrounds who will be well prepared for the evolving roles of information professionals in the digital age. It has exceeded all of our expectations and goals."

Before being named to his current position with Emory University Libraries in February 2007, Halbert was the libraries' director for digital programs and systems for 11 years. He was also head of networked systems for libraries and head of the Computing Resources Library at Rice University, taking a semester off from Rice in 1994 to work for the U.S. Information Agency in Tartu, Estonia as an American Library Association fellow, advising the national university library in automation planning.

Since 2001, Halbert has successfully applied for many grants for collaborative projects, receiving funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Historic Publications and Records Commission and National Science Foundation.

He has served the National Science Digital Library, the U.S. leading online library for education and research in science, technology and mathematics, as chair and vice chair of the policy committee, co-chair of the technology standing committee and a member of the planning committee. He was chair of both the Emerging Technologies Interest Group and the Digital Library Technologies Interest Group for the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association, and has served as a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation and Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Ann Thornton Named as Interim Director of the New York Public Library

Library Journal reports that Ann Thornton, NYPL's Director for Reference and Research Services, has been named as the interim Director of the New York Public Library effective in November.

Congratulations to Ann, who has worked at NYPL since 1996. She began her career as a Systems Librarian at the University of Houston Libraries during the period I served as Assistant Director for Systems there.

Carolyn Walters Named Interim Dean of Indiana University Libraries

Carolyn Walters has been named Interim Dean of the Indiana University Libraries. Previously, she served as Executive Associate Dean of the Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In her role as associate dean of the University Libraries, Walters was responsible for public services, technical services, collection development and scholarly communication initiatives, and University Archives. She has led the planning for the proposed Research Commons in the Herman B Wells Library and the proposed renovation of the Business/SPEA Information Commons.

In her 22 years with the IU Bloomington Libraries, Walters has also served as head of the Journalism Library, acting director of Collection Development, head of the Undergraduate Library, head of Information Commons/Undergraduate Library Services and director of public services. In 2002, she became the first librarian to receive the Michael Gordon Faculty Award presented by IU's Division of Student Affairs.

Walters was a fellow in the Academic Leadership Program of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (2006) and was selected to participate in the Frye Leadership Institute (2005), sponsored by the Council on Library and Information Resources, EDUCAUSE and Emory University. She was a member of the inaugural group of IU's LEaD Program, a year-long leadership development program. In her positions at IU, Walters has distinguished herself in areas including undergraduate services, space planning, and scholarly communications.

The dean of University Libraries provides administrative leadership for a system of libraries on IU eight campuses. On the Bloomington campus, the dean provides strategic planning and policy direction in the areas of collection development, public and technical services, facilities planning and personnel policies.

Peter Nürnberg Named as Chief Technology Officer of the Texas Digital Library

Peter Nürnberg has been named as the Chief Technology Officer of the Texas Digital Library.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Peter comes to the TDL with extensive experience in both academic research and industry environments. Since 2001 he has helmed his own software consulting company (Xtructure), managing teams on a wide variety of development efforts, including projects for NASA and TeleAtlas. He also previously served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Software and Media Technology at Aalborg University in Esbjerg, Denmark, pursuing research in areas such as hypermedia, Web technologies, knowledge and information management, and digital libraries.

Peter Suber Receives Joint Fellowship at Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Law School Library

Congratulations to Peter Suber, who has received a Berkman Center for Internet & Society joint fellowship at the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Law School Library. He will "be focusing on Open Access documentation efforts, as well as outreach around Open Access, across Harvard and beyond."

In his advocacy efforts for the open access movement, Suber has been a tireless speaker and a prolific author, noted for his exceptionally lucid, insightful, and well-reasoned commentary.

Here's an excerpt from Stevan Harnad's "Peter Suber Appointed Berkman Fellow at Harvard" post:

A brilliant choice, and eminently well-deserved. Peter—whose historic contributions to the growth of OA have been spectacularly successful—will continue his invaluable OA work, but this Fellowship will also make it possible for him to begin writing the books on OA and related matters that are welling up in him, and that the world scholarly and scientific research community (as well as the historians of knowledge) are eagerly waiting to read, digest and learn from for years to come.

DigitalKoans

Profile of Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO

The Society for Scholarly Publishing has published a profile of Todd Carpenter, who is the Managing Director of the National Information Standards Organization.

Here's an excerpt:

[SSP] Where do you see scholarly communications heading, and what new directions interest you most?

[Carpenter] I see the following as critical areas that are in most desperate need of attention in our community: discovery, license and ownership questions, and preservation. On the questions of discovery, thanks to Google, we seem to have forgotten all of the advances in organization that libraries have developed over decades in finding information and have turned to rely solely on keyword searching. This works well enough 80% of the time. The problem is that people have become satisfied with the 80% results that Google returns in fractions of a second, not understanding that there may be something critical in that remaining 20%. Incorporating into search classification structures, ontologies, and improved semantics—all common under different guises in the print world—is a critical component to ensuring that ALL relevant content is visible to users. . . .

The directions that interest me most include ebooks and display technology, identification of items, people and content, and copyright. The next transformation of our industry will likely be in how people access digital content—moving away from the desktop to something that more resembles the experience of using a book. Much of this will depend on developments with display technology, digital ink, and battery power. How people interact with content is going to come down to better solutions for identification of people and content. Control of access to content will be driven by advances in identity management. This likely won't come out of the publishing world (more likely banking or government), but will have incredible ramifications on how scholarship and all content is distributed. Finally, sharing and reuse of content is not likely to be contained by the current rules for copyright. Restructuring those rules to acknowledge and allow what most people want to do with content will be a key question worth watching if copyright is to continue to have any respect by end-users of content.

DigitalKoans

Interview with Kristin Antelman, Associate Director for the Digital Library at NCSU Libraries

In "A Conversation with Kristin Antelman," Brett Bonfield has interviews Kristin Antelman, Associate Director for the Digital Library at the North Carolina State University Libraries about the Taiga Forum (a group for Assistant/Associate University Librarians and Assistant/Associate Directors), its controversial 2009 Provocative Statements, and other topics.

Here's an excerpt:

[Bonfield] Is there anything we could do to that would keep us from being at the mercy of Google and the major publishers? . . . .

[Antelman] Scholarly publishers, operating in an increasingly consolidated market, will continue to raise prices beyond inflation and restrict libraries through complex big deal licenses. They do have us at their mercy. Open access may be the eventual solution (and I think it is) but, in the interim, the detrimental impacts of their dominance (smaller market for monographs, for instance) will continue to be significant. One thing libraries can do—and many have done—is never again enter into big deals, where flexibility is traded for cost savings. Another thing libraries can do is to be less fixated on collecting for posterity. Scholarly work is increasingly preserved beyond our walls: a significant percentage of the best articles are already openly available on the web (and this segment is growing), while another significant percentage is made openly available by publishers after an embargo period. Libraries, collectively, will have to be less dogmatic about licensing (and replicating) complete and official versions of the STM (scientific/technical/medical) literature. At risk are two dimensions of our mission that have historically (and justifiably) defined us as research libraries: developing collections of significant breadth to meet the needs of all our constituents and maintaining the capacity to invest in new services.

University of Maryland Libraries Dean Position Finalists: Alford, Howard, and Steele

The finalists for the Dean of Libraries position at the University of Maryland Libraries are Larry Alford, Dean of University Libraries at Temple University, John Howard, Associate University Librarian at Arizona State University, and Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries at Indiana University Bloomington.

Read more about it at "Dean of Libraries' Search Narrowed."

Harvard University Library’s Dale Flecker to Retire

The Harvard University Library's Office for Information Systems has announced that Dale Flecker, Associate Director for Planning and Systems, will retire on June 30.

Here's an excerpt:

Flecker served the Library for nearly 31 years as an expert in information technology and libraries. He came to Harvard as a systems librarian in 1978, directed the Office for Systems Planning and Research from 1979 to 1985, and became an Associate Director of HUL in 1985.

Dale did more than anyone to guide the Library into the digital age. He understood the possibilities and the problems of e-journals, e-books, and e-catalogues as soon as they appeared on the horizon. At the turn of the century, there were no models for creating a library digital infrastructure that would store and preserve digital objects. Thanks to Dale, Harvard took the lead in this crucial area with its Digital Repository Service, and it pioneered in other aspects of online teaching and research through the Library Digital Initiative. Dale's advice determined library policy at many critical junctures. We will badly miss him.

Randy J. Olsen Wins Inaugural Howard Goldstein Award to Advance Scholarly Communication

Randy J. Olsen, University Librarian for the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, has won the first BioOne/SPARC Howard Goldstein Award to Advance Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Randy J. Olsen has held leadership positions in the Utah Library Association, the American Library Association, Research Libraries Group, Greater Western Libraries Association, Mountain Plains Library Association, and Utah Academic Library Council. He currently chairs the Library and Scholarly Communications Advisory Council at Brigham Young University and currently serves as a member of the Steering committee for SPARC. . . .

A pragmatist, Olsen initiated a series of concrete steps that have since provided sustainable models for a growing number of important campus publications. These solutions have likewise served as a direction for others to follow. It was Olsen's idea, for example, to hire Jeff Billiston as the Scholarly Communications Librarian to identify and provide publication services and programs. In 2006, Olsen encouraged Billiston to develop an institutional repository that now hosts the legacy issues for 12 publications, with several more to come. In 2007, Olsen became aware of several campus journals in danger of extinction as print-only publications. Careful review of each journal's situation resulted in a variety of solutions that range from a library-sponsored investment in the development of Open Journal Systems software for peer-review and content management, to customized varieties of Open Access publication.

It was Olsen's suggestion that four faculty members attend the Association of Research Library's Institute on Scholarly Communication in 2007. Knowledge about publishing options gained at this event enabled one of BioOne's newest journals, the Western North American Naturalist, to identify a solution to its critical need to modernize. Now in its second year in the BioOne.2 collection, WNAN has increased its distribution and begun to earn important revenue to help sustain its program.

Challenged once again by Olsen, WNAN's publisher the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum at BYU concluded that because their companion, Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist, is not their main revenue-producing publication, the best way to enhance its distribution was to add it to BioOne's Open Access collection. The two publications are now seamlessly available to users and their editorial staff is better able to manage both products. According to WNAM's grateful editor Mark Belk, Olsen has thus helped his publications meet their mission to communicate science broadly. Olsen's efforts to engage University leaders in this conversation have helped Belk strengthen his argument for the support necessary to ensure production for the good of the entire research community.

Abby Smith Named Director of Virginia’s Scholarly Communication Institute

Abby Smith has been named the Director of the University of Virginia Library’s Scholarly Communication Institute

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Karin Wittenborg, University Librarian, and Diane Parr Walker, Deputy University Librarian at the University of Virginia Library and Co-Principal Investigators of the Scholarly Communication Institute (SCI), announced today that Richard E. Lucier will step down as director of SCI, and that Abby Smith, currently senior advisor to SCI, will become Director, effective April 10, 2009. Bethany Nowviskie, currently SCI program associate, will become Associate Director.

Richard Lucier founded the Institute in 2003, together with Deanna Marcum, and under his leadership, SCI has worked to advance scholarly communication through annual summer Institutes and working with and advising Institute participants throughout the year. Lucier has actively advised SCI participants in the development of EthicShare, the Architecture Visual Resources Network (recently launched as SAHARA), and the Online Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. . . .

Abby Smith is a historian and consulting analyst with special interest in the creation, preservation, and use of the cultural record in a variety of media; the impact of digital information technologies on cultural heritage institutions; and the evolving role of information as a public good. Formerly director of programs at the Council on Library and Information Resources, she has been with the Institute since its inception, and served as senior advisor since 2006: "I look forward to leading the Scholarly Communication Institute at this promising juncture in the evolution of the humanities, when scholars are embracing new technologies in imaginative ways to advance research and share it more broadly. Richard has set a clear course for SCI, focused on collaborative actions that serve scholarship broadly and change not just the work we do, but, just as importantly, the way that we work."

In addition to her role as associate director of SCI, Bethany Nowviskie is Director of Digital Research & Scholarship at the University of Virginia Library. She holds a doctoral degree in English from the University of Virginia and has taught courses in literature, bibliography, and new media aesthetics and design. Nowviskie has been active in the digital humanities since 1995.

Karen A. Coombs Named Mover & Shaker by Library Journal

Congratulations to Karen Coombs, Head of Libraries Web Services Department at the University of Houston Libraries, on being named in Library Journal's Movers & Shakers 2009: The People Shaping the Future of Libraries.

An open source software and Web 2.0 expert, Coombs is the coauthor of Library Blogging, the author of over 15 articles, and a very active speaker and workshop presenter.

Coombs is also well-known for her work on innovative Web-based projects such as Five Weeks to a Social Library and the Your BIGWIG Social Software Showcase 2008 as well as for her participation in the LITA Top Tech Trends expert panel.

Coombs holds an M.S. in Information Management from Syracuse University, an MLS from Syracuse University, and a B.A. in Anthropology and Music from Beloit College. Prior to working at Houston, she served as the Electronic Services Librarian and the Information Technology and Instruction Librarian at SUNY Coltland's Memorial Library. She was the LITA BIGWIG (Blogs, Interactive Groupware Wikis Interest Group) chair in 2007-2008.

Her Weblog is Library Web Chic.

Former Congressman Thomas H. Allen Named President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers

Thomas H. Allen, former Democratic six-term House of Representatives member from Maine, has been named President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"In this age of rapidly changing technology, we must not lose sight of the abiding importance of the written word to our culture, society and our democratic institutions," Mr. Allen said. "AAP advocates on issues of paramount importance ranging from free speech and education to the protection of intellectual property rights and international freedom to publish. I am excited about tackling the challenges of this new position and its responsibilities to the publishing industry and the reading public."

David W. Lewis Named Assistant Vice President for Digital Scholarly Communications at Indiana

David W. Lewis, Dean of the University Library at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, has been named Assistant Vice President for Digital Scholarly Communications in the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for Information Technology. Lewis will serve for two years in this capacity while retaining his duties as Dean of IUPUI's University Library.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In his new role, Lewis will provide university-wide leadership for Recommendation 12, "Recapturing the Scholarly Record," which is described as a grand challenge in Empowering People, IU’s strategic IT plan.

Recommendation 12 envisions a set of actions for IU to "pursue a position of leadership in the development (with partners) of new, sustainable models for scholarly publication, dissemination, and curation that enable scholars—and their collective communities—to re-assert control over rights to the scholarly record and its institutional preservation."

The plan, developed with the involvement of more than 140 members of the university community in response to a charge from President McRobbie, was endorsed by the IU Trustees in December 2008.

In announcing the appointment, IU Vice President for IT Brad Wheeler said, "The complexities and challenges for economically sustaining scholarly communications are great, and this is a timely opportunity for IU to assess a full range of options for the future. David's appointment assures the focused effort we need to help coalesce many ideas into actionable plans."

As assistant vice president, Lewis will engage in extensive dialogue with IU's faculty and research scholars, librarians, faculty council committees, the IU Press, UITS, and other research universities.

"Libraries are at the center of the many complex issues regarding scholarly publication and dissemination," said Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries. "We've worked diligently help find solutions. Having David in a leadership role leverages his knowledge of these issues and the critical understanding he brings as a librarian."

Lewis joined Indiana University in 1993 as the head of public services at IUPUI University Library and has served as dean since 2000. He has a bachelor's degree in history from Carleton College, a master's of library science degree from Columbia University, and certificates of advanced study in librarianship from the University of Chicago and Columbia University.

Ray English Named Winner of 2009 Hugh C. Atkinson Award

Ray English, Director of libraries at Oberlin College, has received the 2009 winner of the Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Named in honor of one of the pioneers of library automation, the Atkinson Award recognizes an academic librarian who has made significant contributions in the area of library automation or management and has made notable improvements in library services or research.

"Ray English has provided transformative leadership within his own institution, his state and region, in ACRL and as a national leader in scholarly communications through SPARC," said Sarah Michalak, Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award committee chair and university librarian/associate provost for University Libraries at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "The award has been given to a college librarian only once before in its 21 year history."

English was a primary founder of the ACRL scholarly communication program, serving as chair of the task force that led to the program and also as chair of the Scholarly Communication Committee from its inception until 2006. He is a long-time member and current chair of the SPARC steering committee, of which Oberlin College is a founding member. English has also lectured and written extensively on scholarly communication issues and open access. Since 1988, he has served on more than 15 ALA and ACRL committees and is a former member of the ACRL Board of Directors (1996-98).

Under English’s leadership, Oberlin became the first private, liberal arts college library to join OhioLINK. In addition, he participated in a cooperative effort with four other Ohio private colleges in establishing a new consortium, the Five Colleges of Ohio, which received a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for library resource sharing. He also coordinated a $475,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to incorporate information literacy into the liberal arts curriculum of the Ohio Five schools. English additionally served as co-project director of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership grant to create a library diversity intern program at Oberlin College from 2000-02 and since 2003 has directed four separate multi-institution grants from the Mellon Foundation totaling more than $2 million that are designed to attract undergraduates from diverse backgrounds into the library profession and encourage leadership development. The Oberlin College Library received the 2002 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award in the college category.

English received his A.B. with honors in German from Davidson College in 1969. He earned his masters in German literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971, where he also received his M.S.L.S. in 1977 and earned his PhD in German literature in 1978.

The Hugh C. Atkinson Award is jointly sponsored by four divisions of the American Library Association: ACRL, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), the Library Leadership and Management Association (LAMA) and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). The award is funded from an endowment established to honor Hugh C. Atkinson.

Kate Wittenberg Named Project Director, Client and Partnership Development at Ithaka

Kate Wittenberg, formerly Director of the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC), has been named Project Director, Client and Partnership Development at Ithaka.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In her new role, Wittenberg will focus on building partnerships among scholars, academic centers, publishers, libraries, technology providers, societies, and foundations with an interest in promoting the development of digital scholarship and learning. From proposal creation to market research, business development, and product planning, she will draw on her years of work with scholars and experience building online academic resources to help digital publishing stakeholders identify, build, and sustain innovative initiatives. . . .

Wittenberg spent most of her career at Columbia, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of Columbia University Press until 1999, and went on to found and direct EPIC (the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia) for the university. EPIC was a pioneering initiative in digital publishing, and a model publishing partnership for libraries, presses, and academic IT departments. Some of the ventures produced by EPIC include CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online), Gutenberg-E (a reinvention of the monograph as an electronic work), and Jazz Studies Online. Wittenberg brings to Ithaka more than two decades of experience working with faculty, a deep understanding of libraries, first hand experience of digital projects centered within academic institutions, and a wide knowledge of the digital landscape and disciplinary trends. She has worked closely with a number of foundations, and has built a strong reputation in the community through her work at Columbia, her many speaking and consulting engagements around digital publishing, and her numerous publications.

Anne Jarvis Named University Librarian at Cambridge

Anne Jarvis, currently Deputy Librarian at Cambridge University Library, has been named Cambridge's University Librarian.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Anne, aged 46, said: "Cambridge is already one of the world's great research libraries. I look forward both to building on this success and to an exciting future in which the University Library will play a leading role in providing innovative services in a rapidly changing information landscape."

Anne has been Deputy Librarian at Cambridge University Library since 2000. Her main professional interests include emerging information technologies, succession planning, change management and digital preservation.

As Deputy Librarian her role has been to ensure that future information trends are identified, future service needs are anticipated and the highest quality service standards are delivered. Key to this, she believes, is nurturing and developing a highly motivated, knowledgeable and skilled staff.

A graduate in history of Trinity College Dublin, Anne's library career began in special libraries and included posts at FÁS, the Training and Employment Authority in Dublin, Ireland, and Coopers and Lybrand in London, England.

Her career in academic libraries began at Dublin City University, (DCU) in Ireland. She then moved to Trinity College Dublin where she took up the post of Sub-Librarian, Collection Management, before returning to the UK to take up her current post at Cambridge. During this period she also served for two years as Vice-President at Wolfson College, where she has been a Fellow since 2000.

William Kilbride Named Executive Director of the Digital Preservation Coalition

William Kilbride has been named Executive Director of the Digital Preservation Coalition.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

William has many years of experience in the digital preservation community. He is currently Research Manager for Glasgow Museums, where he has been involved in digital preservation and access aspects of Glasgow's museum collections, and in supporting the curation of digital images, sound recordings and digital art within the city's museums.

Previously he was Assistant Director of the Archaeology Data Service where he was involved in many digital preservation activities. He has contributed to workshops, guides and advice papers relating to digital preservation.

In the past William has worked with the DPC on the steering committee for the UK Needs Assessment, was a tutor on the Digital Preservation Training Programme and was a judge for the 2007 Digital Preservation Award.

Larry Carver Named Digital Preservation Pioneer

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress has named Larry Carver, retired Director of Library Technologies and Digital Initiatives at University of California at Santa Barbara, as a digital preservation pioneer.

Here's an excerpt from the UCSB press release:

"We at the UCSB Library are thrilled that Larry Carver has received this important and well-deserved recognition," said Brenda Johnson, university librarian. "His tireless and innovative work in the development of the Map and Imagery Lab and the Alexandria Digital Library has brought international attention to our library and has benefited thousands of scholars, students, and members of the public from around the world. We offer him our heartiest congratulations on being named a Library of Congress ‘Pioneer of Digital Preservation.'" . . .

Carver began his career at the library where he helped build an impressive collection of maps, aerial photography, and satellite imagery that led to the development of the Map and Imagery Laboratory (MIL) in 1979. As the MIL collections grew, Carver felt that geospatial data presented a unique challenge to the library. He believed that coordinate-based collections should be managed differently than book-based collections. But not everyone agreed with him.

"It became apparent that handling traditional geospatial content in a typical library context was just not satisfactory and another means to control that data was important," he said. "It wasn't as easy as it sounds. I was in a very conservative environment, and they were not easily convinced that this was something a library should do."

Carver and others spent years developing an exhaustive set of requirements for building a geospatial information management system. The system had a number of innovative ideas. "We included traditional methods of handling metadata but also wanted to search by location on the Earth's surface," Carver said. "The idea was that if you point to a place on the Earth you could ask the question, 'What information do you have about that space?,' as opposed to a traditional way of having to know ahead of time who wrote about it."

An opportunity to develop that system arrived in 1994 when UCSB received funding from the National Science Foundation for Carver and his team to build the Alexandria Digital Library. "We produced the first operational digital library that was based on our research," Carver said. "Our concentration was to be able to develop a system that could search millions of records with latitude and longitude coordinates and present those results via the Internet."

The basic concepts behind the Alexandria Digital Library have been widely adopted by Google Earth, Wikipedia, and others. Carver couldn't be more delighted.

"I think it's wonderful," Carver said. "We weren't trying to be the only game in town. We were just trying to raise consciousness way back in the early 1980s that this was a viable way of handling geospatial material. This approach lets people interact with data in a realistic way without having a great deal of knowledge about an individual object. It was a new way of dealing with massive amounts of information in an environment that made finding and accessing information much easier."

Read more about it at "Digital Preservation Pioneer: Larry Carver."