Milner Library Appoints New Associate Dean for Public Services

Illinois State University's Milner Library has announced the appointment of David Stern as associate dean for Public Services effective June 1. Stern will coordinate the reference, instruction, outreach and collection development activities of the subject librarians. 

Stern was previously an associate university librarian at Brown University and the director of Science Laboratories at Yale University.  He holds degrees from the University of Connecticut in biological sciences, Indiana University in history and philosophy of science and library science.

Stern served as editor of the journal Science and Technology Libraries from 2005-2007, and served on the Board of Directors (2000-2003) and also as the chair of the Knowledge Management Division (2007-2008) of the Special Libraries Association, the leading international library association of over 14,000 librarians serving specialized populations of researchers.

Stern also taught library science graduate courses at the University of Illinois and Southern Connecticut State University, and serves as a consultant and advisor to a number of professional societies and commercial publishers and online services. His list of publications includes over a dozen journal articles, several book chapters, the book Guide to Information Sources in the Physical Sciences and his two edited special issues of Science and Technology Libraries titled Digital Libraries: Philosophies, Technical Design Considerations, and Example Scenarios and Competencies for Science Librarians.

Stern's research involves electronic retrieval and transmission of data, focused primarily upon scholars' workstations. A recent grant explored the linking of paleobotany full-text material with related museum and researcher databases. He is also working on the development of standards and cost models for consortial full-text search and retrieval systems.

Stern has been a speaker at conferences of ALA, SLA, AAAS, SSP, ASIS, NASIG, Online, InfoToday, Charleston Conference, CESSE, NFAIS and the Library of Congress.