Helen Ruth Tibbo (born 1955) is an American archivist, professor and author writing about digital preservation in the archival profession. At the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
, she created and directed the first American master's degree on digital curation.
She is a past President of the
Society of American Archivists
The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the organi ...
Early life and education
Tibbo's ancestors include
colonizers Miles Standish
Myles Standish (c. 1584 – October 3, 1656) was an English military officer and colonizer. He was hired as military adviser for Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, United States by the Pilgrims. Standish accompanied the Pilgrims on ...
and
John Alden
John Alden (c. 1598 - September 12, 1687) was a crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the ''Mayflower'' which brought the English settlers commonly known as Pilgrims to Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, US. He was hired in Sou ...
.
She attended
Bridgewater State College
Bridgewater State University is a public university with its main campus in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. It is the largest of nine state universities in Massachusetts. Including its off-campus sites in New Bedford, Attleboro, and Cape Cod, BSU h ...
and graduated with a BA in English in 1977.
She taught junior college for several years before enrolling in graduate studies.
Her Master's is in Library Science from
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universit ...
in 1983.
She then attended the
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
where she obtained an MA in American Studies and a PhD in Library and Information Science in 1989.
Her doctoral dissertation was "Abstracts, Online Searching, and the Humanities".
Career
Tibbo joined the
University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science in 1989 where she taught archives, digital preservation, data curation and management.
In 2000, she began teaching Digital Preservation and Access, one of the first college courses to cover the topic.
Four years later she was appointed co-chair of the Digital Curation/Institutional Repositories Committee at the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
, which involved the planning of UNC's institutional digital repository.
She helped create "DigCCurr I and II" which developed the curriculum for archival graduate students.
In April 2007, the DigCCurr conference brought almost 300 participants with 100 speakers from 10 countries.
She also directed ESOPI-21 (Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21st Century), which helps prepare students for work in shaping public policy and preserving government records and data.
Tibbo collaborates with other universities and institutions, including the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
,
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 ...
, and the United Kingdom's
Joint INformation Systems Committee
Jisc is a United Kingdom not-for-profit company that provides network and IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education institutions and research as well as not-for-profits and the public sector.
History
T ...
and Digital Curation Center.
Professional service
Tibbo is a member of the
Society of American Archivists
The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the organi ...
(SAA) and served as SAA Vice President from 2009 to 2010 and SAA President from 2010 to 2011.
She has been a member of various boards and committees, and co-founded the SAA Research Forum.
Tibbo also helped create a Digital Archives Specialist certificate program and helped update the Guidelines for Graduate Professional Archival Studies.
Awards
*
Society of American Archivists
The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the organi ...
Fellow (August 2005)
*
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
Digital Pioneer (October 2001)
* Alumni Distinguished Professor at the
University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science (July 2010)
* Distinguished Alumni Award from the
Indiana University-Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest campu ...
at the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (June 2018)
Select publications
* "Archival Reference Knowledge," ''
The American Archivist'' with Wendy Duff and
Elizabeth Yakel (2013)
* "The Economic Impact of Archives: Surveys of Users of Government Archives in Canada and the United States," ''
The American Archivist'' with
Elizabeth Yakel, Wendy Duff, Amber Crushing and Adam Kriesberg (2012)
* "Placing the Horse before the Cart: Conceptual and Technical Dimensions of Digital Curation," ''
Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung'' (2012)
* "The Development, Testing, and Evaluation of the Archival Metrics Toolkits," ''
The American Archivist'' with Wendy Duff,
Elizabeth Yakel, Joan Cherry, Aprille McKay, Magia Krause and Rebecka Sheffield (2010)
* "Standardized tools for assessment in archives and special collections," ''Performance Measurement and Metrics'' with
Elizabeth Yakel (2010)
* "The Archival Metrics Toolkit: Development and implementation," ''
Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology'' with
Elizabeth Yakel, Aprille McKay and Wendy Duff (2009)
* "Developing curriculum for digital libraries and digital curation education: Reflections on synergies and divergencies," ''
ASIST'' with Javed Mostafa, Jeffrey Pomerantz, Jerome McDonough and Carole L. Palmer (2008)
* "The Archival Metrics Toolkit: Development and implementation," ''
ASIST'' with
Elizabeth Yakel, Aprille McKay, Wendy Duff and Joan M. Cherry (2008)
* "Digital Curation and Trusted Repositories: Steps Toward Success," ''J. Digit. Inf.'' with Christopher A. Lee (2007)
* "Personal Email Management on the University Digital Desktop: User Behaviors vs. Archival Best Practices," ''
ASIST'' with Megan A. Winget and Kimberley Chang (2006)
* "On the nature and importance of archiving in the digital age," ''Advances in Computers'' (2003)
* "Modeling the information-seeking behavior of social scientists: Ellis's study revisited," ''
JASIST'' with Lokman I. Meho (2003)
* "Archival perspectives on the emerging digital library," ''
Communications of the ACM
''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members.
Articles are intended for readers with ...
'' (2001)
* "Collaboration Services in a Participatory Digital Library: An Emerging Design," ''
CoLIS'' with Diane H. Sonnenwald, Barbara M. Wildemuth, Bert J. Dempsey, Charles R. Viles and J. S. Smith (1999)
* "Freestyle vs. Boolean: A Comparison of Partial and Exact Match Retrieval Systems," ''
Information Processing & Management'' with Lee Anne H. Paris (1998)
* "Review - The Art of Abstracting," ''
Information Processing & Management'' (1997)
* "A Text Filter for the Automatic Identification of Empirical Articles," ''
JASIS'' with Stephanie W. Haas and Jeremy Sugarman (1996)
* "Indexing for the Humanities," ''
JASIS'' (1994)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tibbo, Helen
1955 births
American archivists
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty
Living people
Presidents of the Society of American Archivists
Bridgewater State University alumni
University System of Maryland alumni