Iowa State University

Inside Iowa State
Mar. 20, 1998

Campus visits scheduled for library dean finalists

by Anne Dolan

Four finalists have been named in the search for a dean of library services. They are Olivia Madison, associate director for public services and collections and interim dean of library services, Iowa State; Keith Russell, deputy director of the National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, Md.; John Ulmschneider, associate director for information technology at The Libraries, North Carolina State University, Raleigh; and Thomas Wilding, director of libraries at the University of Texas, Arlington.

The candidates will visit campus and interview for the position over the next couple of weeks. Each will discuss "library services in the 21st century" at an open forum (followed by a reception), and participate in a discussion on diversity.

Public forums for library dean candidates


Madison has been a member of the ISU library faculty since 1975 and interim library dean since August. She has led the serials cataloging section in the serials department, as well as the monographs and cataloging departments. From 1991 to January 1998, she served as assistant director for public services. Since January, she has been on temporary leave from her position as associate director for public services and collections. She chairs the International Federation of Library Associations' section on cataloging.

Since 1995, Russell has served as deputy director of the National Agricultural Library, the largest ag library in the world and one of four national libraries. He has worked at the library since 1984, serving in a variety of administrative positions. Russell also has held positions at the Council on Library Resources, Washington, D.C.; University of Arizona, Tucson; University of Texas, Austin; and Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library, Houston. He has written or co-authored many reports on agricultural libraries and their role in ag research.

Wilding has directed the libraries at the University of Texas, Arlington, since 1993. As an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Texas, he teaches the academic libraries course in the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences. He also has held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge; and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C. He is the vice president/president-elect of the Library Administration and Management Assn., a division of the American Library Assn.

Ulmschneider has worked in the North Carolina State library system since 1986, the last 13 months as associate director of information technology. He also has held positions at Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.; and the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md. Currently he is involved in designing the technical and service aspects for a statewide database access program, for which the lead server will be housed at North Carolina State.

Former dean of library services Nancy Eaton left Iowa State in August to become dean of the university libraries at Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

(For more information on the candidates, see www.iastate.edu/news/releases/98/library03.11.html)

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