MIT Libraries is pleased to announce that Heather Yager will be joining the library staff as the director of digital projects in January. A new position reporting to the director of Libraries, the director of digital projects will help create a bold roadmap that reflects the Libraries’ ambition to lead the development of libraries as open global platforms.

“We are thrilled to welcome Heather Yager to the MIT Libraries,” says Director Chris Bourg. “In this role, Heather will champion and pursue projects that leverage MIT’s and the Libraries’ strengths to solve collective, global challenges in scholarly communications, information management, and digital research.”

This position marks the start of a multi-year commitment by the Institute and the Libraries to expand investment in and resources for library technology activities and initiatives. Yager will direct the development, maintenance, and scaling of software applications and tools designed to dramatically increase access to research collections, to improve service capabilities, and to expand the library platform.

The director of digital projects also will be responsible for leading the Libraries’ efforts on a variety of collaborative digital library projects, all aimed at increasing global access to MIT’s collections and facilitating innovative human and machine uses of a full range of research and teaching objects and metadata.

“I am honored and excited to begin working with the incredible MIT Libraries to realize its vision for the future,” says Yager. “MIT’s strong history of innovation and strong commitment to open access are inspiring, and I am looking forward to joining the team in January.”

Yager is currently the head librarian at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, where she directs the Academy’s library and digitization laboratory and serves as technical lead for all library data platforms. She previously served as the Academy’s archivist and digital media librarian. Yager also served as digital media archivist and audiovisual archivist at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences and Binghamton University in New York.