The Librarians

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a period when university librarians and IT leaders found themselves (and their staffs) collaborating more closely on a number of projects: online catalog systems, personal computers in libraries, Internet access, and electronic information access, to name a few. A few universities were even trying to merge IT and Library organizations (Fairfield was an example in the AJCU world). It was natural that people in both the CITM and Conference of Library Directors began thinking there would be value in holding joint meetings.

A survey conducted in December 1994 by Charles Kratz, Library Director at the University of Scranton, polled members of the Conference of Library Deans on when they would prefer to meet, and whether there was interest in a possible joint meeting with CITM. The results showed that there was support for such a meeting.

Coincidentally, the University of Scranton was scheduled to host both the CITM and Conference of Library Directors meetings in 1998. Kratz and his superior Jerry DeSanto, Associate Provost for Information Resources who also had responsibility for IT, proposed holding a joint meeting. The meeting was held at Scranton April 26 – 28 and had 64 attendees: 23 with library affiliation, 33 with technology affiliation, one person responsible for both, and Fr. Charles Curry, President of AJCU. There were also two librarians and four technology staff from AUSJAL institutions. The attendees were very pleased with the event (evaluation forms universally rated the event at four or five on a one to five scale). Both groups agreed to continue to meet jointly on an every-other-year schedule.

Subsequent joint meetings were held April 10 – 12, 2000 at Xavier; April 7 – 10, 2002 at Georgetown; May 3 – 5, 2004 at Marquette; April 30 – May 2, 2006 at LeMoyne; March 30 – April 2, 2008 at University of San Francisco; March 4 – 6, 2012 at Boston College; and May 17 – 20, 2015 at Loyola University Maryland.