Harvard University
The University of California, Berkeley has selected Suzanne L. Wones to serve as its new university librarian, effective July 1, 2024, following Jeffrey MacKie-Mason’s retirement.
Prior to the announcement, Wones, with over 20 years of library leadership experience, recently served as an associate university librarian for discovery and access at Harvard Library.
In her new role, Wones will redouble her efforts to address issues related to open access, systemic racism, and biases. “Addressing the inequities in American society has been one of my most deeply held values,” said Wones. Her graduate-level thesis focused on the intersectionality among race, gender, and American identity in African American women’s organizations in the 19th and 20th centuries.
While at Harvard, Wones co-led efforts to renovate a reading room into one that housed a browsing collection focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, and antiracism. And she co-led a project that enhanced the infrastructure for digital preservation of collections related to African American history in partnership with historically Black US colleges and universities.
Wones stems from a family of librarians, in fact, you might say it is in her DNA. Her maternal grandmother was a town librarian, and her paternal grandmother, who had a lifelong affinity for libraries, has a scholarship named in her honor to fund the education of library students.
For more information visit UC Berkeley’s press release.
