Director of Access Services

Associate Librarian

Library Public Services

As the Library’s Director of Access Services, I provide system-wide leadership of the department responsible for circulation, interlibrary services, offsite storage, document delivery, scanning, reserves, stacks management, facility coverage, patron billing, and other unit-specific tasks such as equipment loans or patron carrels/studies. I also coordinate the Library’s approach to providing streaming video resources. Since arriving at Cornell in 2019, projects I have worked on include our successful migration to the FOLIO open source library services platform (making us the first major research institution in the world to fully implement it), shepherding a proposal to eliminate most library overdue fines and fees as an initiative to support affordability and remove barriers to library use from development all the way through to approval, and leading the team that created a new contactless pickup service from scratch during the first week of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    
Previous stops in my career include the University of Maryland (2013-2019), where I held the titles of Head of Learning Commons and Media Resources Librarian; McDaniel College (2011-2013), where I was the Access Services Librarian; and the University of Pittsburgh (2000-2011), where I worked numerous library jobs and also completed both my undergraduate and graduate studies. 
   
My primary research interest is instructor and student use of streaming and other video resources in higher education, but I have also published and presented on a wide range of other topics, including academic library makerspaces, assessment, cinephilia, copyright issues, and high-density storage facilities. My service activities include leadership roles in the American Library Association, Consortium of College and University Media Centers, and Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, as well as numerous elected positions in shared governance bodies at the University of Maryland.
    
My wife Marion also works at Cornell in the Medieval Studies Program and we live downtown with our daughters Lucy and Alice and our dog Sally.

Candidate Statement:

I agreed to run for re-election as an RTE Faculty Senator-at-Large because I am encouraged by the progress which was made during my first term to clarify that this constituency is just as important a part of the Faculty Senate as University Faculty and has the same privileges and responsibilities. I am also heartened by the significant strides we as a body have recently made toward functioning as an effective platform for members to advocate for their own views and those of the people they represent, although there is still much work to be done. I’m particularly interested in exploring ways of involving more faculty in crafting resolutions before they are brought to a vote. If elected I will advocate for this issue, continue to educate myself about each matter that comes before the Senate, and seek opportunities to become more involved through service on committees and other means as they arise.