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Frazier named campus chief information officer; Van Gemert named acting director
By Kristin Knipschild
Library Communications
Posted 5/3/2006
MADISON, Wis. -- Provost Patrick Farrell announced Monday, May 1, UW-Madison Libraries Director Kenneth Frazier will take a leave from his position as director to serve as interim chief information officer for the campus. Frazier will begin his new position July 1, and Deputy Director Edward Van Gemert will become acting director of the libraries.
"The only thing I can anticipate for certain is that this is surely going to be an interesting experience," said Frazier.
Frazier has served as director of the UW-Madison Libraries since 1992 and has held various positions within the library system since 1978. Under Frazier's leadership, the libraries have created one of the nation's most extensive digital library collections. Very recently, the UW-Madison Libraries began to use this digital library infrastructure to support digital publishing of university research and scholarship by establishing the Office of Scholarly Communications and Publishing.
On the national level, Frazier is the past-president of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Currently, he chairs an ARL committee charged with the responsibility to develop a national digitization strategy to provide open access to all federal documents via the Internet. He is the founder of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), which is an ARL-sponsored initiative that advocates reducing the cost of research information by promoting competition and technical innovation in scholarly publishing.
Van Gemert has served as deputy director of the General Library System since 2003 and as associate director since 2001. He has held a variety of positions in the libraries since 1982. Van Gemert earned both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from UW-Madison. He served as chair of the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians in 1999 and served on the board of directors for the Wisconsin Library Association from 1998-1999. In the past several years, Van Gemert coordinated and managed the implementation of a UW System-wide library automation project, spearheaded new preservation facilities for the libraries, forged a partnership with the Wisconsin Alumni Association allowing alumni access to library resources, established the UW-Madison Public Services Council. He also reorganized the public services division in the libraries by consolidating units and departments in 2000.
A general library staff meeting to discuss the transition will be held at 3 p.m. Monday, May 8, in the Great Hall of Memorial Union.