Category: People in the News

Michael Keller Appointed CLIR Senior Presidential Fellow

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has announced the appointment of Michael Keller, Stanford’s University Librarian, as CLIR Senior Presidential Fellow. Keller is also Director of Academic Information Resources, founder and publisher of HighWire Press, and publisher of the Stanford University Press.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

During the two-year appointment, which begins August 1, Mr. Keller will undertake a series of studies and reports for CLIR publication. His research will include examining the recommendations of recent cyberinfrastructure reports and exploring how our communities can respond to the complex environment these reports envision, including the role and function of institutional repositories, digital archives, and digital libraries. He will also compose white papers that elucidate new and emerging research methodologies, new models of scholarly publishing, the role of supercomputer
centers in the evolving concept of cyberinfrastructure, and topics specific to rethinking aspects of libraries and academic life. During his tenure as fellow, he will continue to work from Stanford.

DSpace Executive Director Appointed

Michele Kimpton, formerly of the Internet Archive, has been appointed the Executive Director of the newly formed DSpace nonprofit organization.

Here’e an excerpt from the announcement:

I am happy to report that we are making good progress on establishing the new non-profit organization, and I would like to take this opportunity to announce that Michele Kimpton has accepted the position as Executive Director for the organization. The DSpace non-profit corporation will initially provide organizational, legal and financial support for the DSpace open source software project. Prior to joining DSpace, Michele Kimpton was one of the founding Directors at Internet Archive, in charge of Web archiving technology and services. . . .

Michele developed an organization within Internet Archive to help support and fund open source software and web archiving programs, so she comes to us with a lot of experience in both open source software and long-term digital curation. Her organization worked primarily with National Libraries and Archives around the world, so she is familiar with large, widely diverse and distributed communities. Michele was one of the co-founders of the IIPC ( International Internet Preservation Consortium, netpreserve.org), whose mission is to work collaboratively to develop tools, standards and processes for archiving and preservation of web material.

The DSpace non-profit corporation is in the final stages of completing filing status as a not-for-profit corporation of Massachusetts. By summer 2007 we expect to have this legal entity in place, and a complete Board of Directors. Both MIT and Hewlett Packard have provided the start up funding to establish the organization over the next several years. . . .

Heading for the Exits

At SPARC: "Rick Johnson, SPARC’s founding Executive Director, has announced his decision to resign. Heather Joseph has been named to succeed him. Joseph is the founding President and Chief Operating Officer of BioOne, an innovative aggregation of high-impact bioscience research journals. The change in SPARC leadership is effective July 1, 2005." And, at BioMed Central: "Jan Velterop, Director and Publisher of BioMed Central, will be leaving to pursue independently his many engagements as an advocate of Open Access to societies, funding institutions and publishers. Matthew Cockerill and Anne Greenwood will take joint responsibility for publishing and other activities of BioMed Central as the business continues its rapid growth." (Thanks to Peter Suber for the second one.)

What are the chances that these two major figures in the scholarly publishing reform movement would have their resignations announced within a day of each other? Let’s hope it’s not a trend. Rick Johnson did a bang-up job of "creating change" at SPARC, and Jan Velterop vigorously led the OA journal charge at BioMed Central, fostering the development of over 100 journals. Kudos and best wishes to both. I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of them.