Welcome

Alberta Comer

Alberta Comer University of Utah

Abstract

Alberta D. Comer, Dean of the Marriott Library and University Librarian welcome and introduction

Author Biography

Alberta Comer, University of Utah

Alberta Comer has served as Dean and University Librarian at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah since August 2013, and has just completed 3 years as an officer on the Salt Lake City Public Library’s Board of Trustees. Formerly the Library Dean at Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Comer has served as editor of Indiana Libraries as well as editor of Cognotes, the daily paper of the American Library Association Conference. While ISU Library Dean she collaborated with the county public library and two smaller academic libraries to share an online catalog, a project that involved migrating from two different systems and merging onto a third system. Her undergraduate degree is from Indiana University-Bloomington (IU-B) where she graduated summa cum laude, and she holds a master’s degree in library science from IU-B. As the leader of Utah’s flagship academic library, Comer oversees a robust digitization program, including the Utah Digital Newspapers program, one of the largest digital collections of newspapers in the country and which recently was awarded an IMLS grant. In addition, the University Press, an agency of the Marriott Library, has won a number of awards for their publications including “Best of Best of University Presses ALA/AAUP.” Comer is a member of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ARL) and chairs the ARL Academy Advisory Group. She is the past chair of the Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC), is a board member of the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), and serves on the University of Utah’s American Indian Resource Center Advisory Council. She has taught a course at the University of Utah’s Asian Campus in South Korea and is actively engaged in development efforts for the Marriott Library.