ATLANTA, GA – May 8, 2018 – LYRASIS, one of the nation’s largest non-profit membership organizations serving archives, libraries and museums, is pleased to announce that Sheila Rabun has been hired as the United States Community Specialist for ORCID. ORCID is an international nonprofit organization committed to connecting scholars and scholarly authors to their publications through the use of a unique identifier and registration, overcoming the boundaries of disciplines, nations and time.
ORCID’s goal is to enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions and affiliations. In the United States there are four regional ORCID consortia, all led by academic library alliances: the Big Ten Academic Alliance (previously CIC), the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), LYRASIS and NorthEast Research Libraries (NERL). These consortia, led by LYRASIS, recognized the need to scale efforts to support ORCID integration in the United States and worked in partnership with ORCID to establish a shared program for member institutions. This new program will support the robust adoption and implementation of ORCID services in the United States.
The ORCID US Community Specialist position is a new role, created to increase engagement and build community. In this new role, Sheila will be focused on expanding the community of ORCID’s organizational members as well as developing educational and informational programs and providing support for existing members. The ORCID US Community Specialist is central to the growth of the ORCID program and will work closely and collaboratively with the scholarly publishing community, research community and ORCID staff. Sheila will be involved in all aspects of the program and will serve as a key spokesperson and advocate for ORCID. Her new position is effective immediately.
Celeste Feather, Senior Director of Licensing and Strategic Partnerships, says, “We are excited both to welcome Sheila to the LYRASIS team as well as to the wider ORCID program. The synergies between the communities served by LYRASIS and those served by ORCID created a wonderful opportunity for this collaboration, and Sheila is uniquely qualified to fill this new role. Her deep experience with academic libraries and scholarly communications at large make her a perfect fit.”
Before joining LYRASIS and the ORCID US program, Sheila worked extensively within the field of academic libraries. She previously served as the Digital Project Manager and Interim Director of the University of Oregon Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center (DSC), overseeing all aspects of the Libraries’ digital collections, including digital production and metadata, institutional repository management, platform development and digital scholarship project collaborations with faculty, students and other organizations. More recently, she was the Community and Communications Officer for the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Consortium, managing all projects, events and activities for the IIIF community of around 120 museums, libraries, software firms and related cultural heritage institutions around the globe. With a BA in Communication from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas and an MA in Folklore from the University of Oregon, she is currently earning an MLIS from the University of Washington Information School online program. She is a certified “Scrum Master” and advocates for agile project management techniques in libraries.
Please contact Sheila at orcidus@lyrasis.org with any questions.
About LYRASIS
LYRASIS (www.lyrasis.org), a 501(c)(3) is a non-profit membership organization supporting enduring access to our shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide.
About ORCID
ORCID’s (www.orcid.org) vision is a world where all who participate in research and innovation, from imagining to building and managing, are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders and time. ORCID provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research and innovation activities. ORCID provides open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions and affiliations. These services help people find information and simplify reporting and analysis.