The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has named Catherine Davidson as a visiting program officer (VPO) for scholarly communication initiatives from September 2016 through June 2017. Davidson, a 2009–2010 graduate of the ARL Leadership Fellows program, is the associate university librarian (AUL) for collections and research at York University in Toronto, Canada.
In her role as VPO for scholarly communication initiatives, Davidson will help plan and implement a one-day institute on scholarly communication to be offered at the ACRL 2017 Conference. She will collaborate with the ARL staff to revamp the Association’s scholarly communication presence on ARL.org and to continue the series profiling digital scholarship support in ARL libraries. She may also engage in other projects that emerge from ARL’s Strategic Framework during the coming months.
“The Association of Research Libraries is pleased that Catherine Davidson has agreed to take on this assignment and that the York University Libraries are supporting her in this endeavor,” said Elliott Shore, ARL executive director. “With us Catherine will promote and facilitate research library participation in the entire scholarly communication life cycle, from conceptualization to research to dissemination—work that is central to the mission of higher education.”
As the AUL for collections and research at York, Davidson works with the library leadership team and three departments to develop and implement strategic library directions. Reporting to her are Technical Services (composed of Bibliographic Services, Monographic Acquisitions, and Serial and Electronic Resources Acquisitions), Resource Sharing, and the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections. Previous reports included Library Accessibility Services and Library Computing. Davidson’s portfolio has allowed her to be closely involved in scholarly communication, open access, and digital initiatives at York, with research data management being a recent addition.
Davidson has been active in the ARL community, especially in the area of library assessment. She collaborated with two York colleagues on the development of the ARL SPEC Kit on Digital Image Collections and Services and she worked and presented on the 2009–2010 MINES for Libraries survey conducted for the Ontario Council of University Libraries. Davidson also served as York’s representative in the Association while she was interim university librarian in 2014–2015.
“I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to serve as a visiting program officer and to collaborate with ARL colleagues in furthering the important work that has already been carried out in the realms of scholarly communications and digital scholarship,” said Davidson. “Working with ARL in various capacities in the past has been tremendously rewarding and I feel fortunate to be able to contribute in this capacity again.”
The ARL VPO program provides opportunities for outstanding staff members at ARL member libraries to contribute to special projects and programs, either in whole or in part, in order to advance the agenda of the Association. Visit the ARL website for more information about ARL’s Visiting Program Officer program.
About the Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in the US and Canada. ARL’s mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/.
