SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

May 16, 2013 by INFOdocket

Skip Prichard Named CEO and President of OCLC, Will Take Over July 1

May 16, 2013 by INFOdocket

David “Skip” Prichard has been named the next President and CEO of OCLC, effective July 1. (In the meantime, he will serve as President-elect, effective June 3.) Prichard will succeed Jay Jordan, who will retire June 30, after 15 years as OCLC President and CEO.
Prichard most recently served as President and CEO of Ingram Content Group, a position he left just shy of a year ago, saying he’d met the goals he came to achieve. Previously, he was President and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning, a position he vacated after the business was sold to Cambridge Information Group in 2007.
“I’ve always admired OCLC from afar,” Prichard told LJ. “This is my first time with a nonprofit, and I am looking forward to that.”
Though he spoke of the challenges facing libraries today—the usual suspects of mobile, MOOCs, social networking, and the ever-present budget pressure— and OCLC’s mission to help libraries overcome them, Prichard was clear that he does not come with any fixed roadmap. “There’s nothing in terms of an agenda to change the current path,” he said. He plans to “really listen to the member libraries, to see what they have to say in terms of the services that we currently provide. How they feel we’re doing, where can we improve, what do we need to accelerate?”
Prichard told LJ that he and his family are relocating to Columbus, OH. He also plans to attend the upcoming major conferences, including, of course, ALA Annual in Chicago. He shared his personal reasons for choosing the position on his blog, including a supportive board, an industry in transition but a stable and respected company, and a chance to make a difference.
This is the second time that OCLC has announced Jordan’s retirement and a would-be successor. Jordan expected to retire in June 2012, to be succeeded by Jack Blount, the former president and CEO of Dynix Corp., where he helped implement the company’s merger with Sirsi in 2005 to form SirsiDynix. But just 12 days later, OCLC reversed its decision, announcing that Jordan would remain at the helm. No explanation for the about face has ever been provided.
Prichard told LJ he was not part of that initial search round. But though this second attempt has produced, in some ways, a very different candidate—one who has spent much of his working career in the library world, rather than briefly intersecting with it, and one whose resume indicates he may be more of a turnaround expert for established companies than a “serial entrepreneur”— Cathy De Rosa, Vice President for the Americas and Global Vice President of Marketing, told LJ that the search process itself, including due diligence, was very similar.
The search was led in both cases by Sandy Yee, Chair of the OCLC Board of Trustees and Dean, Wayne State University Libraries and School of Library and Information Science. Said Yee, “He has guided leading library services organizations through eras of significant change, from print to electronic and from local to global. His experience and commitment to libraries will help us continue our work to move library services and cooperation forward—in the cloud, on mobile devices and through the collaborative work of libraries and partners around the world.”—Meredith Schwartz, News Editor, Library Journal


From Gary Price, editor, LJ infoDOCKET:
Here’s the Full Text of Sandra Yee’s (Chair of OCLC Board of Trustees) Letter to OCLC Members About Skip Prichard’s Appointment

To the OCLC Membership,
As Chair of the OCLC Board of Trustees, it is my pleasure to announce today that Skip Prichard has been selected as the next OCLC President and CEO.
Skip is a proven leader, with an outstanding record of accomplishment. He comes to OCLC most recently from Ingram Content Group Inc., which provides physical and digital services to the book industry, where he served as President and CEO from January 2008 through June 2012. He had joined Ingram Content Group in 2007 as Chief Operating Officer.
From October 2005 to April 2007, he was President and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning, an organization with 1,200 employees in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He also held posts as General Manager and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at ProQuest from April 2003 to October 2005.
Prior to his work at Ingram and ProQuest, Skip held executive positions with LexisNexis, where as Vice President he provided business information and risk management solutions to global corporations, libraries and other organizations.
Skip has the leadership skills, the experience, commitment and energy to guide the cooperative during this particularly exciting time for libraries. He has guided global organizations through eras of significant innovation and growth. These experiences and his commitment to libraries will help us continue our work to move library services forward—in the cloud, on mobile devices and through the collaborative work of libraries and partners around the world.
Skip will succeed Jay Jordan, who will retire June 30 after 15 years as OCLC President and CEO. We all know how much Jay has meant to the cooperative. He has presided over a period of remarkable growth, innovation and global expansion at OCLC. His contributions to the OCLC cooperative, to libraries and to librarianship will have a lasting impact and have provided the cooperative with a strong foundation to continue to advance our mission. We are grateful for Jay’s leadership and dedication.
Jay’s continued leadership provided the OCLC Board of Trustees ample time to conduct a thorough executive search and we had a very strong pool of outstanding candidates. The board was guided in the search process by a three-member steering committee that included Larry Alford, former Board Chair, and Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries; Bernadette Gray-Little, Chancellor, University of Kansas; and me. The entire board was very closely involved in this selection process, and I am grateful for their time and dedicated service.
We are very pleased that effective June 3, Skip Prichard will serve as OCLC President-elect. He will be on the Dublin campus for much of June, working closely with Jay and the OCLC Strategic Leadership Team during the transition. He will become OCLC President and CEO on July 1, 2013.
Skip plans to attend the ALA Annual Conference in June and the IFLA conference in August. His first order of business will be to meet with you, to listen, learn and engage with member libraries. I know you will be impressed with his energy and commitment to advancing the success of libraries and the mission of your cooperative.
Please join me in welcoming him as the next OCLC President and CEO.
Sandy Yee
Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees
Dean, Wayne State University Libraries and School of Library and Information Science

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News

SHARE:

Info IndustryljOCLCSkip Prichard

About INFOdocket

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Recent Articles on LJ

There Are No Lanes: Rural Libraries Do It ALL | Backtalk

After the MLIS

Delaware to Expand Statewide Telehealth Program | ALA Annual 2022

Not Neutral | ALA Annual 2022

Certified Sustainable | Sustainability

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

Journal Article: "Public Libraries as Community Health Partners"

The article linked below was recently published by Certified Public Manager® Applied Research Title Public Libraries as Community Health Partners Authors Melinda HodgesLibrary Director, Buda Public Library, City of Buda ...

University of Cincinnati: Lori Harris Named Interim Dean and University Librarian

From the University of Cincinnati: Lori E. Harris has been named interim dean and university librarian of the University of Cincinnati Libraries effective July 1, 2022. Harris initially joined the ...

New Research Article: "How Policies Portray Students: A Discourse Analysis of Codes of Conduct in Academic Libraries"

The article linked below appears in the July 2022 issue of College & Research Libraries. Title How Policies Portray Students: A Discourse Analysis of Codes of Conduct in Academic Libraries ...

Florida International University (FIU) Launches Open-Access Forensic Research Library

From FIU Announcement: Florida International University (FIU) has launched a first-of-its-kind resource for forensic science practitioners, students, researchers, and the general public. The Research Forensic Library provides access to thousands ...

"Book Banning and the First Amendment" (Video Recording of a Freedom Forum Event)

The video recording of Freedom Forum event about about book banning and the First Amendment was recorded at the Library of Congress on June 21, 2022. The discussion features: Suzanne ...

Educopia Partnering with Curtin University and OAPEN to Create a Community Governed OA Book Analytics Service for Publishers

From an Educopia Announcement: With more than AUD $1M in support from the Mellon Foundation, we at Educopia are excited to be working with collaborative partners at Curtin University  and ...

Just Released: U.S. Copyright Office Publishes Report on Copyright Protections For Press Publishers

From the U.S. Copyright Office: On June 30, 2022, the U.S. Copyright Office published a report titled Copyright Protections for Press Publishers. At the request of Senators Leahy, Tillis, Cornyn, ...

U.S. Census Releases 2021 Population Estimates: Nation Continues to Age as It Becomes More Diverse

From the U.S. Census: The last two decades have seen the country grow continuously older. Since 2000, the national median age – the point at which one-half the population is ...

Vision 2030: Library and Archives Canada Releases New Strategic Plan

From the LAC Website: Following two years of consultations, reflection and work, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has unveiled its strategic plan, Vision 2030, defining the institution’s goals until 2030 ...

Journal Article: "The Financial Maintenance of Social Science Data Archives: Four Case Studies of Long-Term Infrastructure Work"

The article linked below was recently published by the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). Title The Financial Maintenance of Social Science Data Archives: Four Case ...

Library Futures Releases Policy Statement and Draft eBook Legislative Language: Mitigating the Library eBook Conundrum Through Legislative Action...

From a Library Futures Post by Kyle Courtney and Juliya Ziskina: Library Futures is excited to announce that we are launching our policy statement on eBooks. Current eBook licensing practices ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW INFODOCKET ON TWITTER

Tweets by @infodocket

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.