Douglas named University Librarian

Kim Douglas has been named University Librarian. She has been serving as acting director of libraries since the death of the former University Librarian, Anne Buck, last April.

Dan Meiron, associate provost for information and information technology, wrote in an e-mail memo to the campus community: “It gives me great pleasure to announce the appointment of Ms. Kim Douglas as University Librarian. . . . Kim brings to this appointment a deep appreciation of the traditional role of libraries coupled with an equally deep understanding of the enormous potential of
the integration of new digital tools of scholarship.”

He added, “I am certain that Kim will continue to support the enormously high standards set by her predecessor, Anne Buck, whose planning and work in support of the libraries have made it possible for our library system to have an impact far out of proportion to its size.”

Douglas came to Caltech in 1988 as head of reader services and has all along been involved in designing and implementing automated services. She introduced desktop publishing to the libraries, initiating their online presence with Gopher in the early 1990s and then directing the transition to the World Wide Web.

The head of technical information services and director of the Fairchild Library of Engineering and Applied Science—in whose planning and execution she played a significant role—Douglas has also taken a leadership role in implementing digital collections at Caltech, beginning in 1999 with the campus discussion regarding Copyright in Scholarly Communication.

After receiving her MS in library science from the Long Island University in 1978, Douglas held positions in scientific research libraries at the Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and at USC, where she headed the Hancock Library of Biology and Oceanography from 1982 to 1985 and the Science and Engineering Libraries from 1985 to 1988.
•