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Karen Calhoun is Senior Associate University Librarian for Information
Technology and Technical Services at Cornell University Library. She speaks
frequently on next-generation library information systems and technical
services in the digital library. Recently taught workshops include sessions
on organizational change, technology-based innovation, workflow redesign,
and project management. Her current research or operational interests are
integrating access to electronic, digital, and print collections; the future
of the catalog; managing organizational transitions; and evolving roles for
the university research library.

In 2005 Ms. Calhoun served as principal investigator of a research project
commissioned by the Library of Congress (LC) to study research library
online catalogs and consider a framework for integrating them with other
discovery tools such as Google and Yahoo. The report, published by LC in
March 2005 and now widely known as the "Calhoun report," synthesizes a variety of perspectives on the future of the catalog, from the iconoclastic to the visionary, and concludes with a 10-step planning process for library leaders who are seeking to improve information seekers' experiences with
library discovery systems.

Ms. Calhoun was honored in June 2006 with a Presidential Citation from the
American Library Association's ALCTS (Association for Library Collections
and Technical Services) division for her work from 2001 to 2005 on the
Library of Congress Action Plan, an ambitious program that emerged from LC's
Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium.

Ms. Calhoun's undergraduate degree is from Bucknell University in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania. She holds an M.S. in library and information science from
Drexel University and an M.B.A. from Franklin University. Before joining the
Cornell library staff nearly 10 years ago, she worked for 11 years at
OCLC, Inc. Her first professional library job was as a cataloger at the
University of Oregon in Eugene.