ChatNew division and new leadership for scholarly communications and publishing named
April 29, 2016James Ghaphery is VCU Libraries new Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Publishing.
In his new role with the VCU Libraries, Ghaphery will work with the VCU Libraries staff and the university community to advance and deepen the university’s engagement with contemporary issues in scholarly communications and scholarly publishing. Central to that work is developing a new library division devoted to these issues, the first new division created by the VCU Libraries in at least 20 years.
With Ghaphery’s leadership, the new division will incorporate existing efforts in scholarly publishing, scholarly communications, and data management, bringing them into a coordinated strategic framework while adding staff and other assets as appropriate to enable their work and pursue related university priorities, such as a stronger open educational resources initiative. The new division will work in close collaboration with other units in the VCU Libraries and throughout the university to accomplish its strategic goals.
Mr. Ghaphery brings 23 years of library experience, exceptional career accomplishments, and much notable success to his new role. Starting as a library assistant with the VCU Libraries in 1993, Mr. Ghaphery has steadily taken on greater roles and responsibilities, becoming Librarian for Instructional Technology in 1994 and Head, Digital Technologies in 2004. As head of Digital Technologies, he expanded the department to 12 full-time staff responsible for all aspects of technology development, management and support within the VCU Libraries. Notable accomplishments include the nationally recognized and trailblazing MyLibrary initiative in the early 2000s, the first cloud-based integrated library system at a major research library system in 2012, and accelerated development of repository and publishing technologies at VCU over the past three years, including publication of VCU’s first nationally-available digital journals, vastly expanded digital collections, and electronic theses and dissertations.
Ghaphery holds the B.A. in English from the College of William and Mary, the Master of Teaching in English Education from VCU, and the Master of Education in Adult Education from VCU.
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