May 14, 2012

New Watzek director named

Mark D. Dahl has been appointed the Director of Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College. 

Mark D. Dahl has been appointed the Director of Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College. Prior to being named Interim Director in 2010, Mark served as Associate Director for Digital Initiatives and Collection Management Services. He joined Watzek Library in 2001 as Library Technology Coordinator, and also served as Assistant Director for Systems and Access Services. He has been the college liaison to the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) since 2007.

During Mark’s tenure Watzek Library has distinguished itself amongst liberal arts libraries by developing a robust program in digital initiatives and collections in partnership with students, faculty, and staff. The library received special commendation from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities for the innovative use of technologies to enrich library collections and improve services to users in the College’s 2008 accreditation report. Mark has played major roles in securing grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and Institute for Museums and Library Services (IMLS), which have helped support expanding faculty research, access to the arts, and library preservation. He regularly blogs at liberalartslibrary.blogspot.com and has published and presented widely, including a chapter on digital scholarship in a forthcoming volume from ACRL Press on Interdisciplinarity and academic libraries. In 2006, he co-authored Digital Libraries : Integrating Content and Systems (Oxford: Chandos).

Mark received a BA in History and Journalism, and master’s degrees in History and Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Prior to arriving at Lewis & Clark he was the Systems and Technical Services Librarian at Central Oregon Community College in Bend. Mark enjoys commuting to Palatine Hill on his bike or in his running shoes 12 months per year. On the weekends, he can be found running trail ultra marathons, listening to classic country music, and spending time with his three year old son, Rowan.

(This announcement originally appeared in Check it Out, library news from Watzek.)