Wayne State University has named Paul Bracke dean of the School of Information Sciences (SIS) and University Libraries, effective October 16, 2023.
Bracke is currently dean of the Foley Center Library, the primary library for Gonzaga University’s Spokane, Washington, campus, a position he has held since 2016. For the last two years, he has also served as associate provost for the Institute for Research and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. At Gonzaga, Bracke has worked to align services, collections, and spaces with the teaching and research needs of the university. Significant initiatives under his leadership included the expansion of access to collections through joining the Orbis Cascade Alliance and the development of open-publishing services to amplify research being conducted at Gonzaga.
Previously, Bracke was an associate dean at the Purdue University Libraries, where he provided leadership in technology, digitization, research services, and assessment and developed internationally recognized research-support services. Prior to that, he held positions at The University of Arizona, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Bracke’s research interests include social and relational capital in academic libraries, research services, digital libraries, and library automation. He has held leadership positions in the Library Information Technology Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, DataCite, and the Catholic Research Resources Alliance.
Bracke was a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Leadership Fellows 2013–2015 cohort. He holds bachelor’s degrees in history and journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia, a master’s in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a doctorate in higher education from The University of Arizona.
At Wayne State, Bracke will succeed Jon Cawthorne, who stepped down in summer 2022 after serving as dean of the WSU Library System for five years. Tom Walker has been serving as interim dean since August 1, 2022.
For more information about Bracke and this appointment, see the Wayne State University news release “Wayne State Names Paul Bracke Dean of School of Information Sciences and University Libraries.”
