Welcome Michael Walmsley as CDL’s New Assistant Director for Systemwide Licensing

CDL’s Collection Development and Management Program is excited to announce the appointment of Michael Walmsley to the position of Assistant Director for Systemwide Licensing. 

Michael brings to this role 19 years of experience in the publishing industry, and extensive knowledge of collection development and the acquisitions workflows of research libraries.   Michael spent much of his career at GOBI Library Services, a supplier of scholarly ebooks and print books, collection development, and technical services to libraries.   As Director of US Sales and then Vice President of International Sales, he successfully secured numerous business agreements for GOBI, and negotiated contracts with major research libraries and consortia.  Having visited academic libraries in 22 countries around the world, Michael has a deep and broad understanding of how libraries acquire content, and he has been at the forefront of emerging business models and trends in the scholarly publishing industry.   In his sales leadership positions, Michael also gained experience managing teams in remote locations. 

Most recently, Michael was employed at the University of California Press, where he marketed and sold the journals portfolio to academic institutions, managed a team of global sales agents, and developed and negotiated journal licenses with library customers and consortia.  He also supported the Press’ Open Access initiatives, overseeing the membership program for Luminos books.

Michael earned his B.A. in Political Science from Wheaton College (MA) and his Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Miami (FL) .   At Wheaton Michael was named the recipient of the Helene Pruszynski Leadership Award, which is given to a senior dedicated to the community who has enriched the campus environment through contributions to student life and commitment to others.

In his new position, Michael will have responsibility for conducting and overseeing license negotiations for scholarly content on behalf of the University of California Libraries and will manage a distributed licensing and collections staff, including staff in Oakland responsible for negotiation and ongoing management of shared digital resources and collections services staff at UC San Diego who provide acquisitions and shared cataloging services.  He will also assume an active role in facilitating collaborative decision making among UC Libraries collection managers and librarians responsible for shared content licensing.

Michael will report to Associate Executive Director and Director of Collections Ivy Anderson and begins his new position on April 13, 2020.   Please join us in welcoming him to CDL and the UC Libraries.