Jennifer Schaffner

Program Officer

Jennifer has an MLIS from the University of Alberta and an MA in history from UC Irvine. Jennifer specializes in public services, special collections, and support for scholarly research. She is active professionally in RBMS, SAA, APHA and SHARP.

Prior to joining OCLC Research, Jennifer worked in rare book libraries and archives at UCLA and the California Historical Society. Earlier her career focused on general reference, public services and bibliography at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New York Public Library, and Stanford.

Jennifer's curatorial specialty is contemporary book arts and her intellectual focus is on the history of print culture in the early modern period.

Projects

• Support for Research Services - Joint Project with the UK's Research Information Network (RIN)
• Streamlining Photography and Scanning
• Serve on Encoded Archival Context Working Group to Influence the Proposed EAC Standard
• Missing Materials Beta Procedure
• Analyze Archival Discovery Search Logs
• Sharing Special Collections
• Introduce Balance in Rights Management
• Synthesize Research on User Studies in Special Collections and Archives (completed)
• Increase the Scale of Special Collections Digitization (completed)
• Evaluate Current Delivery Practices for Archives and Special Collections (completed)
• Public Service Trends in Special Collections (completed)

Publications

• The Metadata IS the Interface: Better Description for Better Discovery of Archives and Special Collections, Synthesized from User Studies. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Programs and Research, 2009. (online at www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2009-06.pdf)
• With Merrilee Proffitt, The Impact of Digitizing Special Collections on Teaching and Scholarship: Reflections on a Symposium about Digitization and the Humanities. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Programs and Research, 2008. (online at www.oclc.org/programs/reports/2008-04.pdf)
• With Ricky Erway, Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get Into the Flow. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Programs and Research, 2007. (online at www.oclc.org/programs/ publications/reports/2007-02.pdf)