David Ferriero

David Sean Ferriero (born December 31, 1945) is a librarian, a library administrator, and the 10th Archivist of the United States. He was Director of the New York Public Library, and before that, the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University. Prior to his Duke position, he worked for 31 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology library. Ferriero is the first librarian to serve as Archivist of the United States.

Education and personal life
Ferriero grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, and graduated from Beverly High School. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English Literature from Northeastern University.

Ferriero's education was interrupted by service in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He served as a Navy hospital corpsman assigned to a Marine unit in Danang, Vietnam, and on a hospital ship, the USS Sanctuary, in Vietnamese waters.

After the war, Ferriero approached his studies differently; he believes that he was "much more focused at that point". Following his military service, he earned an additional master's degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons College.

Marriage and family
Ferriero married Gail Zimmermann, the daughter of MIT Professor Emeritus Henry Zimmermann. She has developed an independent career in broadcasting as Associate General Manager of UNC-TV in Durham, North Carolina. Before moving to North Carolina, she worked with WGBH-TV in Boston.

MIT Libraries
Ferriero was Associate Director of Public Services at MIT Libraries. His MIT library career spanned 31 years.

Duke University Library
Ferriero was the Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University from 1996 through 2004. Ferriero was the first Duke university librarian to address the members of the university's Board of Trustees in person. He was actively involved in the evolution of North Carolina's Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN).

New York Public Library
Ferriero was the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries at the New York Public Library (NYPL) from 2004. In 2007 his role expanded with additional responsibilities as director of New York Public Library's (NYPL) Branch Libraries. He was responsible for the management and operations of NYPL's Research Libraries since 2005 and the Branch Libraries since 2007. He presided over a major restructuring, which was accompanied by elimination of some positions and the creation of new ones. Ferriero argued that transformation was imperative as NYPL adapted to the profound cultural and societal developments affecting the future of libraries. His initiatives at NYPL engaged the nascent disciplines of digital asset management.

Ferriero prioritized staff recruitment, retention, training, development, and compensation; and he made it a point to try to visit the main reading room every day, assessing the varied needs of NYPL patrons.

Cataloging
Ferriero was the NYPL's Partner Representative in OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), which with its member libraries co-operatively produces and maintains WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog. During Ferriero's tenure, the library stopped using the unique "Billings classification system" for its reference books in the Rose Reading Room (main reading room) (the classification system is named for John Shaw Billings, the former NYPL librarian who devised and introduced it in the nineteenth century).

Google digitization partnership
The NYPL joined the Google Books Library Project during Ferriero's tenure. Google and major international libraries have agreed to making collections of public domain books available for scanning to be offered to the public online, without charge.

National Archives and Records Administration
On July 28, 2009, President Obama nominated him to be 10th Archivist of the United States.

An early October confirmation hearing was scheduled by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. According to the subcommittee chairman, Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware, Ferriero's quick confirmation by the Senate was never in doubt. Ferriero used the public occasion to express his view that the National Archives is at a "defining moment with regard to our existing electronic records, social media communications, and emerging technologies being used throughout government offices." He also noted "issues of collection security, the future of the Presidential Library system, backlogs in processing, staff job satisfaction, stakeholder relationships, preservation and storage needs."

He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 6, 2009; he was sworn into his new office on November 13, 2009.

President Obama appointed Ferriero to simultaneously head the new National Declassification Center, which "has been given four years to go through 400 million pages of federal documents that remain top secret. They date to World War I."

Relationship with Wikipedia
As part of his tenure at the National Archives, Ferriero has taken an active interest in working with Wikipedia, of which he has called himself "a huge fan". When questioned about the National Archives's engagement with Wikipedia, his response was "The Archives is involved with Wikipedia because that's where the people are." Under Ferriero's aegis, the National Archives has worked with the Wikimedia Foundation since 2009, having had a Wikipedian in Residence as well as uploaded thousands of images to Wikimedia Commons. He has quoted a blogger in saying: "If Wikipedia is good enough for the Archivist of the United States, maybe it should be good enough for you."

Affiliations

 * PLUS Coalition (Picture Licensing Universal System), Board of Directors.
 * Association of Research Libraries (ARL).
 * Council on Library and Information Resources/Association of American Publishers, Joint Working Group on Scholarly Communication.
 * Early English Books Online (EEBO), editorial advisory board.
 * Center for Research Libraries.
 * Research Libraries Group.
 * Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP), Board of Directors