Closing keynote address

Abstract

John P. Wilkin is the Associate University Librarian for Library Information Technology (LIT) and is the Executive Director of HathiTrust. The Library Information Technology (LIT) Division supports the Library's online catalog and related technologies, provides the infrastructure to both digitize and access digital library collections, supports the Library's web presence, and provides frameworks and systems to coordinate Library technology activities (e.g., authentication and authorization). Reporting units include Core Services, Digital Library Production Service, Library Systems, and Web Services. Wilkin previously served as the Head of the Digital Library Production Service at the University of Michigan, a position he held from its inception in 1996. DLPS was originally conceived as a federated organization, drawing on resources from the University of Michigan's major information and technology organizations, including the University of Michigan Library. Although this particular aspect of DLPS has changed, now with all of the department's activities situated within the University Library, and nearly all of its funding on the Library's base budget, DLPS continues to have strong campus and national relations. Among the units in the DLPS is the University of Michigan's Humanities Text Initiative, an organization responsible for SGML document creation and online systems that Wilkin founded in 1994. Wilkin earned graduate degrees in English from the University of Virginia ('80) and Library Science from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville ('86). In 1988 he assumed responsibility for the University of Michigan's English and American language and literature collection development, as well as library research support for English faculty and graduate students. Soon after, he implemented a campus-wide service for the analysis of electronic text and encoding text in SGML. In 1992, he began work at the University of Virginia as the Systems Librarian for Information Services, where he shaped the Library's plan for establishing a group of electronic centers, led and provided technical support for those centers, and consulted for the University's Insitute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) in textual issues.