Since 2018 I have been Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications at Concordia University Library and Director of Concordia University Press. My primary duties are to scholarly communication writ large including digital preservation; copyright; open educational resources; the university's institutional repository; publishing; and interlibrary loans. I came to Concordia in 2010 from Yale University, where I was Director of Library Communications.
As Director of Concordia University Press, I am responsible for the operations and editorial program of a non-profit publisher of peer-reviewed books that cross disciplinary boundaries and propel scholarship into new areas. I also founded and edit Text/Context: Writings by Canadian Artists, a series dedicated to 'artists who write.' Collections have appeared by Ken Lum (2020), Colin Campbell (2021), and Liz Magor (2022), and Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald (in press, 2023).
My research interests are varied but centre on bookish things. I have published articles or chapters on Florence Nightingale's childhood library; newsprint production and consumption in North America in the first half of the twentieth century; philanthropic library programs during the Great Depression; education for French Canadian librarians before 1960; and the history of publishing and electronic books. My work has appeared in American Periodicals, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Information & Culture, the Oxford Companion to the Book, the Journal of Academic Librarianship, the Journal of Scholarly Publishing, and the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, among other venues. In 2022-23 I am the Patricia Fleming Visiting Fellow in Bibliography and Book History at the University of Toronto and a Visiting Scholar at Massey College. In 2020 I was awarded the Bibliographical Society of Canada's Bernard Amtmann Fellowship.
I have an Honours BA (with distinction) and an MISt from the University of Toronto, as well as an MA in History from Concordia. For several years (2014-18) I taught a graduate course on the history of books and printing at McGill University's School of Information Studies. I have been active in the Bibliographical Society of Canada and the Association of University Presses and I am a member of the American Printing History Association, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), the Elizabethan Club of Yale University, and the Grolier Club.
Educaton
MA, History, Concordia University
Thesis: "An Extensive and Unknown Portion of the Empire: The Montreal Natural History Society's Survey of Rupert's Land, 1827-1830"
MISt, University of Toronto
Honours BA (with distinction), University of Toronto
Selected conference papers and presentations
Moderator/organizer, “What University Librarians Want Publishers to Know.” Annual meeting of the Association of University Presses, Detroit, MI, 13 June 2019.
“’Book I had when a child’: Queen Mary’s Collection of Children’s Books.” Annual meeting of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, Vancouver, BC, 2 June 2019.
Moderator/organizer, “Where the Stress Falls: Exploring Challenges in the University Library-University Press Relationship.” Charleston Conference, Charleston, SC, 7 November 2018.
“Relics in the Magic Circle, or, Looking for Florence Nightingale in Florence Nightingale’s Childhood Library.” Collection Thinking Conference, Concordia University, Montreal, QC,
13 June 2018.
“University Libraries and University Presses: Working Towards True Collaboration, or Creating a University Press from Scratch.” Library Publishing Forum, Minneapolis, MN, 22 May 2018.
Panelist, "The Lovely Treachery of Canadian Book Publishing: Current Circumstances, Future Directions." Bound by Three Oceans: Reading, Writing, Printing and Publishing in Canada since Confederation, joint conference organized by the Bibliographical Society of Canada and the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture, Toronto, ON, May 30, 2017.
"'A continuous mineral story from one ocean to the other:' The Geological Survey of Canada at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, 1893.” Canadian Historical Association annual conference, Toronto, ON, May 29, 2017.
"'One of the noblest duties of a university': Planning Concordia University Press." Libraries as Publishers IFLA 2016 Satellite Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI, August 11, 2016.
"'This very extensive and almost unknown portion of the empire': The Montreal Natural History Society’s Surveys of Rupert’s Land.” Canadian Historical Association annual conference, Ottawa, ON, June 3, 2015.
"'Print paper ought to be as free as the air and water': American Newspapers, Canadian Newsprint, and the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, 1909-1913." American Printing History Association annual conference, San Francisco, CA, October 21, 2014.
"'A Campus is For Students, So We Must Help Plan It': Student Activism and Library Design at Yale, 1968-69." Library History Research Forum, American Library Association annual conference, Chicago, IL, June 30, 2013.
"Adaptées aux milieux canadiens-français et catholiques": Educating Librarians to be Censors at l’Université de Montréal, 1937-61." History of Libraries Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK, May 7, 2013.
"Special Collections: Hidden & Unique Holdings." Quebec Library Association, Montreal, QC, March 11, 2013.
"'We first saw the Southern Prairies in the tragic days': Exploring the History of the Lady Tweedsmuir Prairie Library Scheme, 1936-40." Canadian Library Association annual conference, Halifax, NS, May 31, 2011.
"Reading the Royal Family: Four Royal Biographies." Colloquium in Book History and Print Culture, Massey College, University of Toronto, March 22, 2007.
