Controlled Digital Lending

Chris Freeland is director of Open Libraries at the Internet Archive, working with partners in the library world to select, source, digitize, and lend a the most useful books.

Before joining the Internet Archive Chris was an associate university librarian at Washington University in St. Louis, managing Washington University Libraries’ digital initiatives and related services. He holds an M.S. in biological sciences from Eastern Illinois University and an M.S. in library and information science from University of Missouri-Columbia. His research explores the intersections of science and technology in a cultural heritage context, having published and presented on a variety of topics relating to the use of new media and emerging technologies in libraries and museums.

While working previously at Missouri Botanical Garden, he founded and led the Center for Biodiversity Informatics and served as the founding technical director of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), an international consortium of the world’s leading natural history libraries that are working together to digitize their historic collections for free and open access use. He has been a project director for several large informatics and academic computing projects, including the development of the Tropicos botanical information system, online at www.tropicos.org, and the BHL, online at www.biodiversitylibrary.org. In addition to his busy academic life, he enjoys making and selling soap for South Compton Soap Company, the small business he runs with his husband, who is also named Chris.