Wendy Pradt Lougee is University Librarian and McKnight Presidential Professor at the University of Minnesota, overseeing a system of libraries on the Twin Cities campus. Prior to her appointment at the University of Minnesota in 2002, Lougee held several positions at the University of Michigan over a 20-year period, including Associate Director of the University Library for Digital Library Services. Her work in launching and developing a premier digital library program at Michigan was recognized with the American Library Association’s Hugh Atkinson Award (2003), Computerworld Honors Program Laureate (2002), and Michigan’s Walter H. Kaiser Award (2001). She held earlier appointments at Brown University and Wheaton College (Massachusetts).
Lougee has served on the Research Libraries Group Board of Directors, as President of the Digital Library Federation, and as Chair of the ARL E-Science Task Force. Currently, she serves as President of ARL and as Vice Chair of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Board. She is a member of the Hathi Trust Board and Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership Board. Her research and publications have focused on digital library development, information economics, assessment of research behavior, virtual organizations, and e-research.
Lougee holds a BA in English (Lawrence University), an MS in library science (University of Wisconsin) and an MA in psychology (University of Minnesota).
Carton Rogers is Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He is responsible for planning, acquiring, managing, leveraging, and preserving the knowledge and information resources that support Penn’s instructional and research programs. He oversees 14 libraries on Penn’s campus, the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in downtown Philadelphia, and the Penn Libraries’ website and vast digital resources. Rogers is an advocate for libraries in public and government arenas, and he represents Penn’s interest in national and regional library consortia that enhance scholarly access to information. These consortia include the OCLC/RLG partnership, LYRASIS, the Coalition for Networked Information, ARL, the American Library Association, the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science (PACHS), the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. (PALCI), the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, and the North-East Research Libraries Consortium. Rogers is currently on the executive boards of PACHS and PALCI, and is Chair of ARL's Transforming Research Libraries Strategic Directions Committee.
Rogers began his career in librarianship at Penn in 1975 and has held a number of positions at the Penn Libraries, including Head of Reference and Technical Services at the School of Medicine Library, Senior Business Administrator, Library Labor Relations Director, and Associate Director of Libraries and Director of the Goldstein Information Processing Center.
Joan Giesecke is Special Assistant to the Chancellor, Professor, and the Dean Emeritus, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries. She joined UNL as Associate Dean in 1987 and served as Dean of Libraries from 1996 to 2012. Giesecke held positions at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia; Prince George's County (Maryland) Memorial Library System; and the American Health Care Association. She received a doctorate in public administration (DPA) from George Mason University, an MLS from the University of Maryland, a master's degree in management from Central Michigan University, and a BA in economics from SUNY at Buffalo. Giesecke's research interests include accreditation, academic integrity, leadership, and management skills and she publishes extensively in these areas. In 2011, she received the ALA Equality Award for her work in promoting diversity in the library professions.
Kathleen De Long is Associate University Librarian (Human Resources and Teaching/Learning), University of Alberta Libraries. She has been a frequent guest lecturer in the Masters in Library Science (MLIS) program at the University of Alberta and sessional instructor for the library leadership and management course. In 2003, De Long was awarded the Miles Blackwell Award for Outstanding Academic Librarian by the Canadian Association of College and University Libraries. As well as her MLIS, De Long has a master's in public management from the University of Alberta, and just recently completed her doctorate in managerial leadership in the information professions at Simmons College. Her current research focuses upon investigating leadership within the library profession.
Jorge Reina Schement is Dean of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. He is also Professor II in the Bloustein School of Public Policy, and in the Department of Latino-Hispanic Caribbean Studies. He is the author of over 200 papers and articles, with eight book credits including, Global Networks (1999/2002), Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age (1997), Toward an Information Bill of Rights and Responsibilities (1995), and Between Communication and Information (1993).
A Latino from South Texas, Schement’s research focuses on the social and policy consequences of the production and consumption of information, especially as they relate to ethnic minorities. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Markle Foundation, Rainbow Coalition, Port Authority of NY/NJ, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), National Science Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Verizon, and Lockheed-Martin. His research contributed to a Supreme Court decision in Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC et al. In 1994, he directed the FCC’s Information Policy Project and conducted the original research that led to recognition of the "digital divide." In 2008, he advised the FCC Transition Team for the Obama administration. He introduced the idea of universal service as an evolving concept, a view adopted in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The movement to integrate community museums, libraries, and public broadcasting as "partners in public service" began in a project he co-directed. He has received awards for his policy scholarship from the International Communication Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pace University, the University of Kentucky, UCLA, and Penn State. Schement has served on the editorial boards of 12 academic journals, and has edited the Annual Review of Technology for the Aspen Institute. He is editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Communication and Information. He received his PhD from the Institute for Communication Research at Stanford University, and MS from the School of Commerce at the University of Illinois.
Anne R. Kenney was appointed the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University in 2008. After a fulfilling archivist role at the University of Missouri, she came to Cornell University Library in 1987. Her previous positions at Cornell include serving as Interim University Librarian, Senior Associate University Librarian for Instruction, Research, and Information Services, and Associate Director for the Department of Preservation and Conservation. Active in the archival and preservation communities, Kenney is known internationally for her pioneering work in developing standards for digitizing library materials and research into digital preservation issues. She is also a Fellow and Past President of the Society of American Archivists, serves on the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Libraries and Archives of Cuba, and was on Portico's Advisory Board. An author of three award-winning books and over 50 scholarly articles and reports, Kenney received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a master’s degree in history from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and a master’s degree in library science from the University of Missouri–Columbia.
Jon E. Cawthorne is the Associate University Librarian for Organizational Development and Assessment at Boston College. Active in EDUCAUSE and in the American Library Association, he regularly participates as a mentor and panelist in the Spectrum Leadership institutes. Prior to RLLF, Cawthorne participated in the UCLA Senior Fellows Program and the Frye Leadership Institute. He holds a BA in English and radio communication from Evergreen State College and MLS from the University of Maryland at College Park. Currently he is ABD in managerial leadership in the information professions at Simmons College.
Vivian Lewis is the Acting University Librarian at McMaster University. Prior to accepting the Acting position, Lewis served as Associate University Librarian for Organizational Development at McMaster. In this capacity, she was responsible for strategic planning and high-level initiative management. In addition, she oversaw assessment, budget, human resources, marketing, and development.
Lewis holds a BA from the University of Western Ontario, an MA from York University, and an MLS from the University of Toronto. She is a graduate of the Harvard Institute for Academic Librarians and a fellow of both the Frye Leadership Institute and the ARL Research Library Leadership Fellows program.
Lewis is currently a member of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries's Research Libraries Committee. Her current research interests include transformational change in academic libraries, the use of the balanced scorecard as a planning and assessment tool, and core competencies for academic librarians.
Xuemao Wang was named Dean and University Librarian of the University of Cincinnati (UC) Libraries as of August 31, 2012. He is responsible for providing strategic leadership and operational oversight for the entire UC Libraries system. With a 30-year career spanning the public, library consortium, and academic library world, Wang came to the University of Cincinnati from Emory University, where he was the Associate Vice Provost of University Libraries since 2009. He was responsible for overseeing the libraries' day-to-day operations with direct supervision of Content and Services Divisions, as well as the administrative and business offices. Prior to that appointment, he was the Head of Library Systems at Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries, with responsibilities for supporting university-wide enterprise library systems.
Wang also served as Director of Information Technology for the Metropolitan New York Library Council, Manager of Internet Services for Queens Borough Public Library, and Head of the Information Service Department for a Chinese academic institution in China. In addition to serving as Chair of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Knowledge Management section, he has worked to strengthen ties between American and Chinese libraries. His educational background includes graduate degrees from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (MLS), University of South Carolina (MLIS), and Hofstra University, New York (MBA).
Tito Sierra is the Associate Director for Technology at the MIT Libraries, where he provides strategic leadership for information technology and digital library initiatives. Prior to MIT, Sierra was Associate Head of Digital Library Initiatives at North Carolina State University. Earlier in his career, he held web development and program management positions at Amazon.com. A recent graduate of the ARL Leadership and Career Development Program (LCDP), Sierra has mentored several graduates of the ARL Career Enhancement Program (CEP). He is also a member of the CLIR Digital Library Federation (DLF) Advisory Committee. Sierra holds an AB from Harvard College and an MS in information management from Syracuse University.
Susan Gibbons is the Yale University Librarian, appointed in July 2011. She earned an MLS and an MA in history from Indiana University, professional MBA from the University of Massachusetts, and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Rochester. She held library positions at Indiana University and University of Massachusetts Amherst prior to moving to the University of Rochester in 2000, where she worked as the Director of Digital Library Initiatives before shifting into library administration. Gibbons was appointed in 2008 as the Vice Provost and the Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester. Most recently, Gibbons’s research has focused on methodologies for library user studies, the alignment of academic libraries with the needs of "net generation" students, university press publishing, and the future of academic librarianship in the digital age. In 2007 she published The Academic Library and the Net Generation Student and Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester, for which Gibbons was co-editor. She was named one of Library Journal’s 2005 “Movers & Shakers” and in 2006 was a Visiting Program Officer for ARL.
John Seely Brown is the Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte’s Center for the Edge and a visiting scholar and advisor to the Provost at University of Southern California (USC). Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as the management of radical innovation, organizational learning, complex adaptive systems, and nano technologies. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include digital youth culture, digital media, and institutional innovation.
Brown, or as he is often called—JSB—is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education, a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of the American Association of the Advancement of Science, and a Trustee of the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, and Varian Medical Systems) and private boards of directors. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals. With Paul Duguid, he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, 2000) that has been translated into nine languages with a second edition in April 2002. With John Hagel he co-authored the book The Only Sustainable Edge, which is about new forms of collaborative innovation, and The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made Can Set Big Things in Motion, published April 2010. His current book, The New Culture of Learning co-authored with Professor Doug Thomas at USC, was released January 2011.
Brown received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences.
Louis A. Pitschmann has been Dean of Libraries at the University of Alabama since 2001. He began his library career at Cornell University before moving to the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he served as Associate Director of Libraries, responsible for collection management and preservation. He has served on the ARL Statistics and Assessment Committee and is currently a member of the ARL Transforming Research Libraries Steering Committee. He is Past Board President of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries and currently serves on the executive committee of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries. Since 2010, he has been the director of the Alabama Center for the Book. His presentations and publications have concentrated on topics relating to the assessment of print and digital collections and global resources in large research libraries. He received his PhD and library degree from the University of Chicago.
Susan Nutter is Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at the North Carolina State University.
Jill Mierke is the Director of Human Resources for the University Library at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. As part of the library’s senior leadership team, Mierke provides leadership, direction, and expertise for the management of the library’s human resources. Over her 10 years with the University Library, she has contributed to the significant transformation of the library's organizational culture and workforce through the design and implementation of key people strategies in alignment with the library’s strategic directions.
Mierke is experienced with strategic planning and systems thinking, and leads the development and updating of the University Library’s People Plan, which sets ambitious strategies for library employees (individually and collectively) to grow their knowledge, skills, and abilities; share their expertise, build relationships, and collaborate; appreciate and celebrate contributions and achievements; and effectively communicate within the library and beyond with the community of users. She is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor’s degree in human resources, and holds the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation—Canada’s national human resources professional certification.
Gary E. Strong has been UCLA University Librarian since September 2003. He previously served as the Director of the Queens Borough Public Library and was the State Librarian of California, where he was Chief Executive Officer of the California Library Services Board and established the California Research Bureau. He has served as a Visiting Officer for the US State Department on a number of occasions working in Eastern Europe and Russia, China, Israel, and Latin America. At Queens he created the Center for International Public Librarianship. At UCLA he serves on the Council of University Librarians, the UC Press Board, the Information Technology Planning Board, and the Advisory Board on Privacy and Data Protection as well as a number of campus-level policy groups. He has been president of a number of library organizations, including LAMA, COSLA, and the Oregon and Pacific Northwest Library Associations. In 1984 he was named a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Michigan, from which he earned a master of library science degree in 1967. He received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Idaho in 1966 and an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 2010. He was named 21st-Century Librarian at Syracuse University and received the Knowledge Trust award in education.
Carla Stoffle has been Dean of Libraries at the University of Arizona since 1991. Prior to coming to Arizona, Stoffle was Deputy Director for Public Services at the University of Michigan Library and the Assistant Chancellor for Educational Services at the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Barbados, in the West Indies.
Stoffle is an active leader in the library profession. She is past president of ACRL, past chair of CRL and GWLA, and past treasurer of ALA. She is currently a trustee for Amigos Library Services and serves on the ARL Transforming Research Libraries Steering Committee.
Stoffle has been honored with ALA’s Elizabeth Futas “Catalyst for Change Award,” the Academic Research Librarian of the Year Award, the Arizona Librarian of the Year Award, and the Vision Award from the University of Arizona’s Commission on the Status of Women. This year, ALA honored her with the Joseph W. Lippincott Award for distinguished service to the profession of librarianship.
Lisa Federer is a Health and Life Sciences Librarian at UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, and is the liaison librarian to public health, psychology, and several medicine departments. She also serves as an NIH–funded informationist to a UCLA research team investigating the use of terahertz technology to measure swelling in the eye. In her role as informationist, she provides research and data support to the multidisciplinary team and is engaged in designing workflows to gather research data from disparate systems and sources. Her research and writing currently focuses on data curation and new avenues for collaboration between academic librarians and researchers. Prior to receiving her MLIS from UCLA, she taught English at the University of North Texas, where she also received an MA in English and BAs in English and French.
Ronald L. Larsen is a Professor and Dean of the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. He has led a number of studies for the National Science Foundation, helping to develop research priorities in digital libraries and information management. During the mid to late 1990s, Larsen was the assistant director of the Information Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he led research programs in digital libraries, information management, and cross-lingual information utilization, with particular emphases on interoperability and the development of performance metrics for large-scale distributed information systems. His career includes 17 years at the University of Maryland, where he served as Assistant Vice President for Computing, Associate Director of Libraries for Information Technology, Executive Director of a 10-university consortium on workforce development, and Affiliate Associate Professor of Computer Science. Prior to that he was at NASA for 17 years, where he managed the agency’s research programs in automation and robotics, and developed its research program in computer science. Larsen holds a BS in engineering sciences from Purdue University, an MS in applied physics from Catholic University, and a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Elizabeth Liddy is Dean and Trustee Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. In 1999, she was appointed Director of the school's Center for Natural Language Processing, which advances the development of human-like language understanding software capabilities for government, commercial, and consumer applications. Liddy is also an adjunct professor at Upstate Medical University, where she conducts research on medical informatics. Liddy has led 65 research projects, with the support of numerous government agencies and commercial enterprises and all based on the use of natural language processing for improved information access and analytics. She has authored more than 110 research papers and given hundreds of conference presentations on her work. In addition, she is a co-inventor on five patents in the area of natural language processing. Liddy is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the library and information studies honor society, and Sigma Xi, the international honor society of scientific and engineering research.
Liddy teaches graduate courses in information retrieval, natural language processing, and data mining. She is also the faculty advisor of Women in Information Technology, a student group that supports and mentors female IT students. She holds a bachelors degree in English language and literature from Daemen College, and an MLS in information studies and a PhD in information transfer from Syracuse.
T-Kay (Tiffany-Kay) Sangwand is the Human Rights Archivist for the University of Texas Libraries’ Human Rights Documentation Initiative and the Brazil Studies Subject Specialist for the Benson Latin American Collection. Over the past three years, she has worked with non-governmental organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US to preserve their human rights documentation. In 2009, Sangwand co-founded the Society of American Archivists’ Human Rights Archives Roundtable.
Sangwand received an MLIS and an MA degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, with specializations in archives, Spanish, and Portuguese. When she’s not in the library, she can be found DJ–ing in Austin and Los Angeles and volunteering at her local bookstore, MonkeyWrench Books.