Peter R. Young

Director

National Agricultural Library

Beltsville, MD

(301) 504-5284

pyoung@nal.usda.gov

Appointed Director of the National Agricultural Library (NAL) in June 2002, Peter R. Young leads and directs NAL’s programs in the agricultural, natural, life, and related sciences serving the US Department of Agriculture and the nation. With an annual budget of $20+ million, NAL staff totals 250+. From 1997 to 2002, Young served at the Library of Congress (LC) as Chief of the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) and Acting Chief of the Asian Division. From 1990 to 1997 he served as Executive Director of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), an independent executive branch agency advising the President and Congress on library and information service policies.

Mr. Young’s career includes positions in national, academic, and research libraries. He directed Faxon’s Academic Information Services and founded the Faxon Institute for Advanced Studies in Scholarly and Scientific Communications (1988-1990). At LC additional managerial positions include Chief of the Copyright Cataloging Division (1985-1988); Assistant Chief of the MARC Editorial Division (1984-1985); and CDS Customer Services Officer (1980-1984). At CL Systems, Inc., Young was Library Systems Analyst and Sales Support Librarian (1976-1980). Mr. Young was Assistant Librarian for Public Services at the Rice University Libraries (1974-1976), Reference Librarian and Head Cataloger at the Franklin and Marshall College Library (1970-1974), Administrative Librarian at the American University Library (1970), and Assistant Director of the Grand Rapids (MI) Public Library (1978).

A native of Washington, D.C., Mr. Young holds an A.B. degree in Liberal Arts (Philosophy) from the College of Wooster, Wooster, OH (1966) and an M.S.L.S. degree from Columbia University's School of Library Service (1968). He served as a Film Library Specialist with the 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army (1968-1970) and was awarded 3 bronze star medals for meritorious achievement directing a Special Services Library in Cu Chi, Vietnam. Mr. Young is a member of the American Library Association (ALA) and has served on committees of LITA, LAMA, RTSD, PLA, and Council. He was President of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) and Co-Chair of the Library Statistics Standard Revision Committee (Z39.7) of the National Standards Information Organization (NISO). He headed the US Delegation to the FAO Consultation on Agricultural Information Management at FAO in Rome September 2002.

Recent addresses include “Information: Tools and Threats” at Special Libraries Association Conference - Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Division session on Agro-terrorism, New York City, June 2003; “Electronic Services and Library Performance: A Definitional Challenge” at the Fourth Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information Services in Pittsburgh, PA. Aug 2001; His publications include “Librarianship: A Changing Profession” in DÆDALUS Fall, 1996 issue Books, Bricks, & Bytes (p. 103-125), and “Balancing PostModern Academic Libraries” in Proceedings of the International Conference on New Missions of Academic Libraries in the 21^st Century, Beijing, China, October, 1998.