On Second Thought: Citing Challenges, Penn State's Eaton Will Delay Retirement

Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 12/02/2008

How challenging is the current environment facing libraries? So challenging that Nancy L. Eaton, dean of university libraries and scholarly communications at Penn State University, has decided to push back her retirement by a year to help guide the libraries through a time of economic crisis, management issues and the latest salvo of disruptive technology. Eaton, who had expected to retire in August 2009, said that a series of unexpected occurrences both on the national scene and on campus caused her to rethink her timetable.

“A number of events have taken place since I announced my retirement date,” Eaton said in a statement, “such as the decline in our national and state economies and resulting university and library budget reductions, reorganization of our volunteer library development council, the search for a new director of Penn State Press, which reports to me, and major negotiations with Google on behalf of the CIC (Big Ten) libraries for the digitization of 10 million volumes." 

Eaton’s decision to push back her retirement date was said to be “fully endorsed” by Rodney Erickson, executive VP and provost—indeed, with an almost palpable sigh of relief. “President Spanier and I are delighted that Nancy will be delaying her retirement date,” Erickson said. “Her service, commitment and leadership have been outstanding and we are glad she will continue in this role, making any transition smoother.”

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