University of Miami Libraries (UML) will welcome Elizabeth “Liz” Gushee as the new associate dean for Digital Strategies in September 2018. Liz comes to us from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas (UT), Austin, where she has served since 2011 as head of Digital Collections Services. At the Ransom Center she is responsible for planning, leading, and coordinating the work of staff engaged in access initiatives for born-digital and digitized collection material, digital preservation and stewardship, and digitization. Her accomplishments at the Ransom Center include: grew the Digital Collection Services Department from one to five staff plus student workers; chaired and lead implementation of a digital assets management system across four university departments; developed and directed Project REVEAL (a privately-funded initiative designed to digitize and place entire literature collections online).
While at the Ransom Center, Liz took the lead in developing an open access policy for the Ransom Center collections. She also served as a member of “DH@UT: Building a Digital Humanities Ecosystem for Innovative Research in the Liberal Arts,” a cross-campus effort among the UT Austin libraries, archives, technology units, and the College of Liberal Arts to build an infrastructure and associated services for digital humanities work, including planning for establishing an Institute for Digital Studies.
Throughout her career, Liz has successfully pursued and executed several grant-funded initiatives including an Institute of Museum and Library Services/Texas State Library and Archives grant involving digitization of the works of artist Frank Reaugh, and a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) grant involving cataloging and digitization of the literary works of the Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Prior to her role at the University of Texas, Liz worked at the University of Virginia Library where she served both as digital collections librarian and as the University of Virginia’s first digital archivist. In the latter role she worked on a Mellon Foundation grant, providing leadership among the cohort of digital archivists from the four partner institutions to develop a framework for collecting, organizing, preserving, and delivering born-digital special collection materials.
During 2014 Liz served on the Ransom Center’s Strategic Plan Leadership Team. She is a 2016 graduate of the Leading Change Institute sponsored by CLIR and EDUCAUSE.
Liz brings to her work a track record of innovation, strategic thinking, project completion, program development, and collaboration within and beyond the libraries. These talents will serve her and the University of Miami well as she begins her work as the next Associate Dean for Digital Strategies.
Liz Gushee can be reached at exg695@miami.edu.
