Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign John Unsworth will be the next vice provost for Library and Technology Services and the chief information officer, according to Provost Steve Goldstein '78 in a Dec. 21 email to the Brandeis community.

"I am delighted that John has accepted the position," wrote Goldstein in an email to the Justice. "Technology and the library are at the center of the university and John's leadership will be central to chart the best course for Brandeis."

Unsworth will be replacing Perry Hanson, who announced his retirement last April. Unsworth was selected by a search committee chaired by Vice President for Planning and Institutional Research Dan Feldman and Prof. Ann Koloski-Ostrow (CLAS).

In an interview with the Justice, Unsworth, who will begin work at his new position mid-February, said that addressing "infrastructure issues" will be one of his priorities as vice provost and CIO. According to him, "challenges" like deferred maintenance to the library are not handled, then there are collections that are potentially "at risk."

Unsworth also said that the University's feature of combining library and information technology services under the LTS umbrella, as opposed to keeping them as separate entities, is "somewhat unusual" and presents itself as "both an opportunity and a challenge."

"What particularly attracted me to this job at Brandeis is that that combination, I think, can work really well together," he said, "and when it does, [it] can provide really interesting work opportunities for staff [and] really interesting support opportunities for faculty and students."

Decisions regarding service and information outsourcing will also be addressed, according to Unsworth, particularly handing both control and cost-effectiveness of information outsourcing, publishing articles by researchers. In addition, Unsworth discussed the digitization of research data that encourages researchers to use computational methods for their analyses. "That, I think, will be one of the challenges for a combined library/IT organization in the future," said Unsworth.

According to Goldstein, Unsworth will be "responsible for the university libraries, technology infrastructure, administrative systems, academic and instructional technology, and user support in a period of transformational change in all these arenas."

Hanson noted in an interview with the Justice that Unworth's role at the University of Illinois will be a major advantage to Unsworth as he begins at Brandeis, saying, "There's a huge plus in having most recently been dean of the number-one library school in the country because he knows where library science is going, what it's going to be, and I think that's huge, because one of the hardest things going on today in higher ed is the role of the library."

"John brings a rare combination of experience and insight into both the library and technology fields," wrote Goldstein. "Given we have a merged library and technology organization—considered the cutting-edge approach—John's skills are an ideal fit."

Unsworth is a 1981 graduate from Amherst College, earned an M.A. in English from Boston University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia in 1988.

When asked what advice he had for Unsworth, Hanson, who served as vice provost for LTS and CIO for 12 years, said, "Appreciate the strength of the LTS staff, how good they are, how funny they are, because they're really remarkable."

—Andrew Wingens and Emily Kraus contributed reporting.