Board
The Board of the Massachusetts Center for the Book is composed of key decision makers from our supporting partner organizations and individuals committed to furthering the mission of the Center.
Rob Maier
Chair
Rob Maier has been the Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners since October 2002. The MBLC is the agency of state government responsible for the maintenance and development of library services for all residents of the Commonwealth. Prior to becoming Director, Mr. Maier headed the Board’s Library Development Unit. A graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, Maier also holds a M.L.S. from the University of Rhode Island Graduate Library School.
Kristin O’Connell
Clerk
Kristin O’Connell, the daughter of two English teachers, grew up in a household of readers. She is now Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, where she has major responsibility for the Clemente Course in Humanities and for Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care. She lives in Amherst with her husband, a professor at Amherst College, in a house that is running out of book space. They have two grown children.
James Wald
Treasurer
Jim Wald is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the
Book at Hampshire College, where he teaches modern European cultural history and the history of the book. He is also the Treasurer and a member of the Executive Board of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP).
Paula Matthews
Paula D. Matthews is Stanford Calderwood Director and Librarian at the Boston Athenaeum. Bio forthcoming.
Michèle V. Cloonan
Michèle V. Cloonan is Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at Simmons College. Before joining Simmons, she held positions at UCLA, the Newberry Library (Chicago), Smith College, and Brown University. She has written widely in the areas of preservation, book trade history, and bibliography, and holds degrees from Bennington College (AB), the University of Chicago (AM), and the University of Illinois (MS, PhD).
David R. Godine
David R. Godine began his career working for Leonard Baskin, the renowned typographer and printmaker, and Harold McGrath, his master printer. In 1970, he established David R. Godine, Inc., a small independent publishing house located in Boston. Among the many awards the house has received are the Carey-Thomas Award for Excellence in Publishing (1976), the W. A. Dwiggins Award for excellence in book production (1984), the Boston Globe Literary Press Award (1987), the first New England Booksellers Annual Award (1989), and the Leipzig Internationalen Buchkunst-Austellung (1989). Mr. Godine holds degrees from Dartmouth and Harvard.
Amy E. Ryan
Amy Ryan is President of the Boston Public Library. Bio forthcoming.
Sharon Shaloo, ex officio