David Sean Ferriero (; born December 31, 1945) is an American
librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...
and library administrator, who served as the 10th
Archivist of the United States
The Archivist of the United States is the head and chief administrator of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States. The Archivist is responsible for the supervision and direction of the National Archives.
The ...
. He previously served as the Director of the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
,
[Oder, Norman. "NYPL Reorganization Coming," ''Library Journal'' (October 1, 2007). Vol. 132, Issue 16, p. 12;] and before that, the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
.
["David S. Ferriero Named Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of The Research Libraries at The New York Public Library" (press release). April 26, 2004.](_blank)
/ref> Prior to his Duke position, he worked for 31 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
library.[Kamen, Al]
"A New U.S. Archivist: David Ferriero,"
''Washington Post.'' July 28, 2009. Ferriero was the first librarian to serve as Archivist of the United States.
Early life and education
Ferriero was born and raised in Beverly, Massachusetts
Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Shore, Beverly incl ...
, and graduated from Beverly High School
Beverly High School is one of two four-year public high schools in Beverly, Massachusetts, United States, the other being the smaller Northshore Academy. It has an enrollment of approximately 1,300 students and is accredited by the Massachuset ...
. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English literature from Northeastern University
Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...
.[Nyul, Renata]
"U.S. Senate confirms alumnus as U.S. Archivist"
Northeastern University Office of Marketing and Communications. November 6, 2009.
Ferriero's education was interrupted by service in the United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
during the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. He served as a Navy hospital corpsman assigned to a Marine unit in Danang, Vietnam
Da Nang or DanangSee also Danang Dragons ( ; vi, Đà Nẵng, ) is a municipalities of Vietnam, class-1 municipality and the list of cities in Vietnam, fifth-largest city in Vietnam by municipal population. It lies on the coast of the East Sea ...
, and on a hospital ship, the USS ''Sanctuary'', in Vietnamese waters.[Donner, Nancy and Caroline Oyama]
"David S. Ferriero Named Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of The Research Libraries at The New York Public Library
NYPL Press Relations. April 26, 2004.
Following his military service, he earned a Master of Science degree in library and information science from Simmons College
Institutions of learning called Simmons College or Simmons University include:
* Simmons University, a women's liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts
* Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black college in Louisville, Kentucky
* Har ...
.
Career
MIT Libraries
Ferriero worked at MIT Libraries
The library system of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Libraries) covers all five academic schools comprising the university. The print and multimedia collections of the MIT Libraries include more than 5 million items, with ov ...
for 31 years, including as associate director of public services.
Duke University Library
Ferriero was the Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs at Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
from 1996 through 2004.["Duke Librarian David Ferriero to Join New York Public Library: Robert Byrd, director of the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, will serve as Duke's acting university librarian after Ferriero's departure."](_blank)
Duke press release (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
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
(NYPL) from 2004. In 2007 his role expanded with additional responsibilities as director of New York Public Library's 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.["NYPL head = Natl. archivist; New Catalog, Restructuring," ''Library Journal'' (August 1, 2009). Vol. 134, Issue 13, p. 11.] Ferriero argued that transformation was imperative as NYPL adapted to the profound cultural and societal developments affecting the future of libraries.
Ferriero prioritized staff recruitment, retention, training, development, and compensation. He also 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
OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
(Online Computer Library Center), which with its member libraries co-operatively produces and maintains WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...
—the OCLC Online Union Catalog
A union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Union catalogs have been created in a range of media, including book format, microform, cards and more recently, networked electronic databases. Pr ...
. 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
John Shaw Billings (April 12, 1838 – March 11, 1913) was an American librarian, building designer, and surgeon. However, he is best known as the modernizer of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the Army. His work with Andrew Carn ...
, the former NYPL librarian who devised and introduced it in the nineteenth century).
Google digitization partnership
The NYPL joined the Google Books Library Project
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
during Ferriero's tenure. Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
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.[New York Public Library + Google](_blank)
/ref>
National Archives and Records Administration
On July 28, 2009, President Obama nominated Ferriero to be 10th Archivist of the United States
The Archivist of the United States is the head and chief administrator of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States. The Archivist is responsible for the supervision and direction of the National Archives.
The ...
.
An early October confirmation hearing was scheduled by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is the chief oversight committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland s ...
. According to the subcommittee chairman, Senator Thomas Carper
Thomas Richard Carper (born January 23, 1947) is an American politician and former military officer serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Delaware, having held the seat si ...
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 was 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
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
, which had "been given four years to go through 400 million pages of federal documents that remain top secret. They date to World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
."
On January 13, 2022, Ferriero announced he would retire effective mid-April 2022 after a twelve-year tenure as Archivist of the United States. He urged President Biden to "not hire another white male" to replace him, and said that he chose to retire at that point so that Biden could be the one to name his replacement. Ferriero's retirement was effective on April 30, 2022, and Deputy Archivist Debra Steidel Wall took over as acting
Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.
Acting involves a broad r ...
Archivist of the United States.
Relationship with Wikipedia
As part of his tenure at the National Archives, Ferriero took an active interest in working with Wikipedia, of which he has called himself "a huge fan."[, "Young chapter shows experience beyond its years", accessed 17 July 2012.] When questioned about the National Archives' 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 worked with the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
since 2009, having had a Wikipedian in Residence
A Wikipedian in residence or Wikimedian in residence (WiR) is a Wikipedia editor, a Wikipedian (or Wikimedian), who accepts a placement with an institution, typically an art gallery, library, archive, museum, cultural institution, learned socie ...
and uploaded thousands of images to Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
. He 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."[
]
Censorship of archival imagery
In January 2020, Ferriero supported the Archives' decision to censor a photograph containing signs critical of President Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
and references to women's anatomy in an exhibit devoted to the centennial of women's suffrage in the United States
In the 1700's to early 1800's New Jersey did allow Women the right to vote before the passing of the 19th Amendment, but in 1807 the state restricted the right to vote to "...tax-paying, white male citizens..."
Women's legal right to vote w ...
. ''The Washington Post'' reported that Ferriero "participated in talks regarding the exhibit and supports the decision to edit the photo." The alteration of the image was immediately criticized by historians, with Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is the history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Histori ...
saying "to confuse the public is reprehensible. The head of the Archives has to very quickly fix this damage." Subsequently, the National Archives issued an apology for the decision and promised to restore the original image and review its exhibit policies.
Personal life
Ferriero married Gail Zimmermann, the daughter of MIT Professor Emeritus Henry Zimmermann. She has developed an independent career in broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...
as Associate General Manager of PBS North Carolina
The University of North Carolina Center for Public Media, branded on-air as PBS North Carolina or commonly PBS NC, is a public television network serving the state of North Carolina. It is operated by the University of North Carolina system, whic ...
in Durham, North Carolina.[Washburn, Mark]
"Funding Runs Low at Public Broadcasters,"
''Charlotte Observer'' (Charlotte, North Carolina). April 14, 2009. Before moving to North Carolina, she worked with WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's sec ...
in Boston.
Affiliations
* PLUS Coalition (Picture Licensing Universal System), Board of Directors.[PLUS Coalition]
David Ferriero
/ref>
* Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and research l ...
(ARL).
* Council on Library and Information Resources/Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...
, Joint Working Group on Scholarly Communication.
* Early English Books Online (EEBO), editorial advisory board.
* Center for Research Libraries
The Center for Research Libraries (also known by its acronym, CRL) is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries, based on a buy-in concept for membership of the consortia. The consortium acquires an ...
.
* Research Libraries Group The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium that existed from 1974 until its merger with the OCLC library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliographi ...
.
* Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP), Board of Directors
References
Further reading
* Kovaleski, Serge F
"New York Library Officials’ Pay? Shhh."
''The New York Times.'' November 19, 2006.
* Riding, Alan
''The New York Times.'' April 11, 2005.
* US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing, October 1, 2009
Nomination of David S. Ferriero to be Archivist of the United States National Archives and Records Administration
External links
AOTUS: Collector in Chief
David Ferriero's Blog as Archivist of the United States
by the National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
State of the Archives address
by David S. Ferriero
video by ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''
* Victim Impact Statement
re: theft of NYPL maps
2006.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferriero, David
1945 births
Living people
Academic librarians
American archivists
American librarians
United States Navy personnel of the Vietnam War
American politicians of Italian descent
Duke University faculty
New York Public Library people
Northeastern University alumni
People from Beverly, Massachusetts
Simmons University alumni
United States Navy sailors
American Wikimedians
Obama administration personnel
Trump administration personnel
Biden administration personnel
Beverly High School alumni