JDG completes search for Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services for the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress recently announced the appointment of Hannah Sommers as the new Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services in the Library Collections and Services Group. In this role, Ms. Sommers will lead the future of the Library’s collections and the services it delivers to researchers and users. She will be central to realizing the Library’s aspiration to be not only the world’s largest, but also the world’s most-used library.
Ms. Sommers is currently the senior associate dean and deputy university librarian at the George Washington University Libraries and Academic Innovation, and will assume her new role at the Library of Congress on February 27. At GW since 2015, she has a wide portfolio of work that includes advising the dean on strategic direction to help GW advance in its research and learning missions and demonstrate its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion more fully. Her current management portfolio includes research services (collections strategy), resource description and scholarly technology. Overall, she provides leadership in the planning and development of services within a management portfolio that enables the GW community to acquire, explore, create and discover information in new ways, manage research data and serve the research and learning enterprises across all campus locations.
Prior to her tenure at the George Washington University, Sommers was the program director for research, archives and data strategy at NPR. From 2004 to 2015, Sommers worked in several positions at NPR where she helped fundamentally shape and manage the implementation of NPR’s first digital archive to not only preserve NPR digital assets, but to make sure that music and archived stories were easily accessible to journalists and others who need them. As a part of her work at NPR, she was the co-author of a multiple-year plan for digital stewardship strategy and advised NPR executives in strategies to increase use of NPR digital stories and preserve NPR digital assets.
Prior to NPR, Sommers held several researcher and reference-related positions within special libraries. She earned a MLIS degree at the University of Texas at Austin.
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