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Library Staff News

January 8, 2004 Author: CDLCategories:

a. Cecily Johns Retires

After may years at the University of California, and nearly four years of contributions to Systemwide Library Planning and CDL projects, Cecily Johns officially retired on December 31, 2003.

In July 2000, Cecily accepted a part-time appointment with the CDL and Systemwide Library Planning to develop a proposal to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for what became the Collection Management Initiative (CMI).  The breadth of Cecily’s experience — at one time or another, she has had administrative responsibility for virtually every facet of research library operations – and her deep knowledge of the UC’s libraries were invaluable in developing this successful project proposal.

These same qualities made Cecily the logical choice to serve as Project Manager for the CMI project in January 2001.  Cecily made major contributions across the whole range of CMI projects and activities, and was indispensable in her special role of communicating and coordinating with the campus libraries.  Most of the informational materials on the CMI web site (http://www.ucop.edu/cmi/), including progress reports and publicity materials, were authored by Cecily, usually in close consultation with a host of CMI advisory groups.

She also provided leadership for the campuses in implementing the Journal Use study, including the painstaking process of selecting 300 titles for the study, planning for the relocation of nearly 9,000 volumes to storage, and overseeing the collection of use data for a one-year period.

Cecily joined the CDL nearly two years ago as a Senior Associate at half-time, complementing her role as CMI Project Director. She assisted the eScholarship program with outreach to the UC libraries, which included coordinating the BioMed Central Liaisons, supporting SLASIAC’s Collection Management Planning Group, staffing the CDC’s Use Data Analysis Task Force, and overseeing the UC editors’ project.

The CDL and the UC libraries were extraordinarily fortunate to have someone with Cecily’s experience in the UC system in technical services, collection development, and public services roles, and to have the UC Santa Barbara library provide her with a home base for these activities. We will miss her cheerful readiness to pitch in wherever needed and her sage advice, and wish her the best in her real retirement.