Dr. Alice H. Bahr Named Dean of Libraries & Instructional Services at SU

SALISBURY, MD -- Dr. Alice Harrison Bahr, director of the library at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, was recently named dean of libraries and instructional services at Salisbury University. The appointment is effective July 15, 2002.

"Literally and figuratively, our library is at the center of our campus," said SU Provost David H. Buchanan, who made the announcement. "Dr. Bahr's experience and credentials give us great confidence that she will make the library an even more integral part of the University and expand our instructional resources."

The dean is responsible for supporting the library collection and disseminating academic information on campus, as well as managing Blackwell Library, the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, and the Teaching-Learning Network/Instructional Resources Office. "The most important quality a library dean offers to an institution is vision," said Bahr. "Vision, however, needs to be informed by more than technical possibilities

and emulating others' successes. Its firmest base is the working experience of others, the institution's goals, student and faculty needs, and the practical limitations of available dollars.

"That notwithstanding," she added, "it also depends on dreaming, imagining a better future."

Bahr, who has been the library director at Spring Hill for 13 years, was chair of the College's Technology Committee and wrote the 1999 College Technology Report and program statement for the College's new library, which houses academic computing, faculty development and administrative computing.

The aim at Spring Hill, said Bahr, "was to provide library users with integrated support for their information needs. That wholeness encompasses every aspect of my vision and is one reason the last issue of the journal I edited eight years focused on the library's teaching role."

From 1990-99 Bahr was editor-in-chief of College & Undergraduate Libraries, a commercial, peer-reviewed professional journal published by The Haworth Press, Inc. She has been chair of the Research for College Librarianship Committee, American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, and currently serves as secretary of the College Libraries Section.

Prior to joining Spring Hill, Bahr was project librarian at The Libraries at Cedar Crest and Muhlenberg Colleges in Allentown, PA. While there she was part of the planning team for their new Trexler Library.

Bahr earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in English literature from Lehigh University, her M.L.S. from Drexel University and her B.A. from Temple University. Her start date will be July 15, 2002.