New NNLM PSR Resource Library Director Profile: Chris Shaffer, University of California, San Francisco

Posted by Alan Carr on August 31st, 2017 Posted in: General

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by Chris Shaffer, MS, AHIP
University Librarian and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Information Management
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
San Francisco, CA

I’m happy to join the Pacific Southwest Region (PSR). As a former National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) staff member in the Greater Midwest Region (GMR) office in the 1990s, I truly appreciate and support the mission of the Network and the National Library of Medicine. Over the last nine years as University Librarian and Associate Professor at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, we had some great collaborations with librarians in the NNLM Pacific Northwest Region. I’ve been active in the Medical Library Association and recently finished a term as Treasurer on the Board of Directors. I’ve also worked at the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois at Chicago, with titles ranging from “Technology Coordinator” to “Assistant Director for Public Services.” A second-generation librarian, I grew up in a small university town in East Texas where my mother worked as a serials librarian. My family and I are looking forward to exploring northern California, starting with Golden Gate Park, which I can see from my office.

I’m excited to be at UCSF and to join the University of California. These are exciting times for academic health sciences libraries, and UCSF is a great place to work. Our library has a long history of high quality services in support of education and the UCSF mission. A leader in digital collections, the UCSF Library created one of the first large-scale digital libraries in the 1990s with the launch of the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. This has now grown to become the Industry Document Library, a portal to aid investigation about cross-industry corporate practices that are detrimental to public health. Our programmers develop and support the Ilios Curriculum Management System, which is used in medical schools across the country. The Technology Commons supports the campus course management system, instructional design, and student computing. With the UCSF Faculty Senate, we initiated an open access policy that has now been endorsed by the entire UC system. The UCSF Library is exploring new roles for libraries through our Data Science Initiative and Maker’s Lab. Our beautiful library on the Parnassus campus is a bustling center of activity, with hundreds of students, faculty, and staff visiting every day. At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the Barnett-Briggs Medical Library supports the San Francisco Department of Public Health, extending information services to health disparity and underserved populations in our community. The Education Team works with the four professional schools to integrate information seeking, management, and analysis skills into the curriculum, provides systematic review services, and offers individual consultations. Our archivists are providing access to the history of health in San Francisco, actively seeking grants in support of programs such as the AIDS History Project.

We are committed to bold approaches to solving the grand challenges facing health sciences libraries. UCSF is proud to be an OA2020 signatory. We stand in support of open science in all its facets, from open access to data sharing to science communication for the public. We believe that libraries are vibrant cultural institutions that bring together people from all walks of life and we are committed to providing services, resources, and spaces that support our community.

I invite all of you to visit us in San Francisco, and I look forward to meeting and working with you and the NNLM PSR staff!