Richard Urban

Richard J. Urban is a Sr. Program and Engagement Officer for the OCLC Research Library Partnership who engages with communities of practice to better understand the evolving ecology of data science and metadata. Through engagement programs and research outputs, he helps advance OCLC research, products, and services at the forefront of metadata management. Richard co-facilitates the RLP Metadata Managers Focus Group. 

Richard has worked with libraries, archives, and museums throughout his career from early digitization projects through large-scale metadata aggregations at the Colorado Digitization Program (CDP) and IMLS Digital Collections and Content Project (IMLS DCC).  As a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Florida State University iSchools, he pursued research on the conceptual foundations of cultural heritage metadata practices with an eye toward developing better user experiences. His research and practice are complemented by a background creating professional development workshops and coursework on information organization, digital libraries, and information architecture. 

Richard holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with a M.A. in History and Museum Studies from the University of Delaware.