Speaker Bios

Loretta Parham: CEO & Library Director of the incorporated Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library, an entity shared by four HBCU institutions—Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College and Spelman College.  Under her leadership the AUC Woodruff Library was just elected as the 127th member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and in 2016 awarded the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award.  Parham’s experience includes: Director of the Hampton University Library, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pa., District Chief of the Chicago Public Library (CPL) and other professional positions with Chicago Public Schools and the City Colleges of Chicago.

Parham is currently on the EDUCOPIA Board, member of the University of Michigan Information School Alumni Advisory Board, the WABE–NPR Advisory Council, and a member of the Roundtable for Aligning Incentives for Open Science of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

An active leader, scholar and engaging speaker, Parham was named the ACRL 2017 Academic Research Librarian of the Year, the 2016 Distinguished Alumna of the University of Michigan School of Information Sciences, a “Mover & Shaker” by the industry publication Library Journal, has authored articles on HBCU libraries and archives, is co-editor of the book, Achieving Diversity: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, and served as faculty for the EDUCAUSE Management Institute.  She has been a featured speaker for programs of the IMLS, Digital Library Federation, OCLC, Georgia Society of Archivists, and more.

Parham is co-founder and past chair of the Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Library Alliance, past chair of the Georgia Humanities Council, former board member of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), former trustee of OCLC, Inc., past chair of the ALA Committee on Accreditation and an officer in many other organizations.

Parham is an alum of the University of Michigan Graduate College and Southern Illinois University; and an alum of the Frye Institute, the ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians, and the HBCU Library Alliance Leadership Institute.