Maureen Sullivan is a widely recognized leader and educator in the library profession. Her career has included positions as the human resources administrator at two major research libraries; a consultant and trainer with the Association of Research Libraries; a member of the faculty in the Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions PhD program at Simmons College and in one of the annual institutes sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and several leadership positions in the American Library Association, including service as the president of two of its divisions. She currently is president-elect of the American Library Association.

Her contributions and visionary leadership in the profession have been recognized in three major awards. She was the recipient of the American Library Association’s Elizabeth Futas Catalyst for Change Award in 1999. The Chicago Public Library named her its 2006 Charlotte Kim Scholar in Residence and invited her to address The Promise of Appreciative Inquiry in Library Organizations. She also was named the 2010 Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries.

She is a librarian who acts as an organization development consultant and whose practice focuses on the delivery of consulting and education services to libraries and other information organizations. She has more than thirty years of experience as a consultant on organization development, strategic planning, leadership development, introducing and managing organizational change, organization and work redesign, establishment of staff development and learning programs for today’s workplace, creating a work environment that supports diversity, revision of position classification and compensation systems, and the identification and development of competencies.

Ms. Sullivan is a past president (1998-1999) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). During her term as President, she helped establish the ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute in partnership with the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is now a member of the faculty for this annual program. She was president of the Library Administration and Management Association for the 1988-89 term.

She has served as a consultant to a number of libraries, including the Boston Public Library, the New York Public Library, the UCLA Libraries, Information Resources at Occidental College, the San Francisco Public Library, the National Library of Medicine, the University of Maryland Libraries, the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, Smith College Library, the Harvard Law School Library and the Emory University Libraries.