Lucier is university librarian at UC San Francisco and is a special assistant for library planning and development at UC's Office of the President. In his new capacity, Lucier will be founding university librarian and executive director of the newly established California Digital Library.
The new library will blend the electronic and print holdings of UC's libraries -- a collection of more than 29 million holdings -- and join with other libraries in the state to make available digital collections of libraries worldwide to the academic community and the general public.
Lucier will plan, develop and administer the digital library, which will include UC's MELVYL Library Information System. He also will investigate and support new approaches to the electronic dissemination of university scholarship and research.
"The university has established itself as a world leader in library and information science," Atkinson said. "The California Digital Library demands an individual who is on the cutting edge of the digital world and who combines the technical knowledge, academic experience, and broad vision essential to the success of this pioneering enterprise. Richard Lucier fulfills all these requirements brilliantly."
Lucier said he hopes to spearhead "a truly comprehensive and integrated approach to all forms of digital communication." These include, he said, the Internet- and CD-ROM content that UC will make available first to its faculty and students and then -- through partnerships with public and private libraries -- to all Californians.
"What we hope to accomplish with the digital library is the appropriate use of technology to better generate, disseminate and provide access to the scholarship and research produced by UC's nine campuses," Lucier said. Lucier also said the California Digital University is "a collaborative effort among all the campuses. The integration of digital information with the outstanding collections that reside on our campuses is a unique strength of this initiative."
He and Atkinson agree the success of the digital library requires the collaboration of librarians and academics on all UC campuses and he will be actively seeking the assistance of all those who have been involved in dozens of the university's successful digital-content projects.
"We already have a firm base of knowledge and experience in developing and distributing digital materials. I'm going to be calling on the advice and counsel of all those who have been involved in those projects," Lucier said.
Lucier has an extensive background in information studies, computers and digital technology. He has been university librarian at the San Francisco campus since 1991. During that same period he served as assistant vice chancellor for academic information management, director of UCSF's Center for Knowledge Management and assistant clinical professor in the School of Pharmacy.
Prior to joining UC, Lucier served as founding director of the Laboratory for Applied Research in Academic Information at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he spearheaded the development of the Genome Data Base and the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a book in support of the international Human Genome Initiative. He was also an associate director for research and computing at Johns Hopkins and director of academic information resources management at the University of Cincinnati.
Lucier holds a master's degree of library science from Rutgers University and a bachelor's degree in music and philosophy from the Catholic University of America.
As university librarian, Lucier will receive an annual salary of $146,400. # # #
Note: To interview Lucier, or to make arrangements to receive a photo of him, please call the UC News Office at (510) 987-9200.