Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Appoints Elliott Shore as New Executive Director

From the Association of Research Libraries:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Board of Directors has appointed Elliott Shore as Executive Director of the Association, effective January 1, 2013. Dr. Shore is currently Chief Information Officer, Constance A. Jones Director of Libraries, and Professor of History at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

ARL President Winston Tabb, the Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums at Johns Hopkins University, announced Dr. Shore’s appointment via e-mail to the ARL membership. “I am very pleased to announce, on behalf of the ARL Board, that Elliott Shore has accepted our offer to become the next ARL Executive Director,” he wrote. “Elliott’s extensive experience as a librarian and library director; his intense engagement in current research library leadership development programs; his experience as a CIO and active participant in EDUCAUSE; and his energy, enthusiasm, and strong commitment to collaboration with our members and strategic partners make him an ideal Executive Director for ARL at this point in our history.”

Since 1997, Dr. Shore has served as the Constance A. Jones Director of Libraries and Professor of History at Bryn Mawr College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the US. In 2002, he was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the college. As Director of Libraries, Dr. Shore modernized and streamlined library operations by combining departments, realigning collections appropriations, and adding new areas of collection development. He served as co-principal investigator on three grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation totaling $1 million, focusing on collaborative collection development and the use of technology in teaching and learning. As CIO he reorganized the college’s library and computing operations into a single Information Services unit. He also overhauled the college’s core computing operations and significantly increased collaboration with neighboring Haverford College.

Before arriving at Bryn Mawr, Dr. Shore was Director of the Historical Studies-Social Science Library at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1985 to 1997. At IAS, he adopted computer-aided indexing and retrieval services, taught classes in using the World Wide Web, and led the integration of linked information technologies across administrative units.

In 1974, Dr. Shore began his career in libraries at Temple University as Curator of the Contemporary Culture Collection. In this role, he developed one of the country’s largest collections of radical, underground, and alternative publications. With federal grant funding, he helped establish the collecting of these ephemeral works as a standard part of research library operations. In 1982 Dr. Shore was appointed History Bibliographer, Reference Librarian, and Assistant to the Director, a position he held through 1984.

Dr. Shore has been active in the library profession for many years. Among his numerous activities, he has been a leader in the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship in Academic Libraries program since its inception in 2003 and a CLIR Senior Presidential Fellow since 2008. He served as a Co-Dean of the Frye Leadership Institute in 2012. His recent committee work has included service on: the Anvil Academic digital publishing Advisory Board since 2011, the Visiting Committee for McMaster University Library in 2012, and the Advisory Committee of Prominent Bibliographic Citizens for the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia since 2012.

Dr. Shore has published widely, delivered numerous papers and workshops, and taught courses in US history with an emphasis on American radicalism and in librarianship, focusing on collection development, technology, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

“As Executive Director of ARL, I look forward to working with ARL’s Board, member libraries, and outstanding staff to strengthen the position of the research library as a unifying force in higher education—the organizing hub of research, teaching, learning, scholarly communication, preservation of cultural heritages, and promotion of academic values,” said Dr. Shore. “The question of how to effectively reposition the library is not a simple one to answer; it will require multiple levels of action and collaboration using all of the skills of the library, higher education, and research communities. ARL is well positioned to play a leading role in mobilizing a coalition of like-minded associations and organizations, and in making the case for the value of library collections and services. I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead.”

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