Abby Clobridge is the managing director and lead consultant at Clobridge Consulting. Abby has a unique background that includes fifteen years of professional experience at the intersection of information management, knowledge management, libraries, and information & communication technology (ICT). She has worked with a wide range of organizations, including United Nations agencies; colleges and universities; not-for-profit organizations; the news media; and private sector companies.
Before founding Clobridge Consulting, Abby was the Associate Director of Research and Knowledge Services at the Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. Her main areas of focus included supporting the school’s Open Access policy and developing a school-wide taxonomy. From 2003 – 2009, Ms. Clobridge was the head of the digital repository program at Bucknell University (Pennsylvania) where she oversaw the university’s digital asset management program, digitization projects, institutional repository, Open Access initiatives, and metadata production.
Along with her former colleague, David Del Testa (Associate Professor, Department of History, Bucknell University), Abby won the 2009 ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award for the development of the World War II Poster Project. Two distinct pedagogical models were developed as a result of this project; both models are being replicated at other colleges.
Earlier in her career, Abby worked as an investigative researcher and news librarian for the CNN News Library, a 24-hour, 7-day a week operation whose mission is to provide research to CNN journalists all over the world.
Abby is actively involved in the professional information & knowledge management community. Her first book, Building a Digital Repository Program with Limited Resources, was published in October of 2010 by Chandos Publishing. She has had several articles published in leading information industry publications such as Information Today. In 2008, she created and hosted the first-ever Mid-Atlantic Digital Library Conference to bring together practitioners, researchers, programmers, librarians, archivists, instructional technologists, information curators, administrators, faculty, and others interested in digital repositories.
Abby holds a B.A. (Cum Laude) in History from Tufts University and an M.S. in Library Science from Florida State University. She is a member of:
- Association of International Consultants (AIC)
- Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP)
- Society for International Development (SID) — Knowledge Management and Information workgroups
- American Library Association (ALA)
- Special Libraries Association (SLA)
- American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST)
Selected Recent Publications:
- Clobridge, Abby. Building a Digital Repository Program with Limited Resources. London: Chandos Publishing, 2010.
- Clobridge, Abby. “The Digital Curation Toolkit: Strategies for Adding Value to Work-Related Social Systems” In Digital Information Review (2012), eds. David Baker and Wendy Evans. London: Chandos Publishing, scheduled for 2012.
- Clobridge, Abby and David Del Testa. “The World War II Poster Project: Building a Digital Library through Information Literacy Partnerships.” Chapter in Using Technology to Teach Information Literacy, eds. Thomas P. Mackey and Trudi Jacobson. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2008.
- Clobridge, Abby. “Libraries in Transition: From Book Collections & Union Catalogues to Open Access & Digital Repositories.” Brno, Czech Republic: ProInflow. October 2011.
Selected Recent Presentations:
- [Invited Workshop Convener] The Nuts & Bolts of Getting Started with Institutional Repositories and Open Access. Full-day workshop at AMICAL 2012. Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. April 2012.
- [Invited Keynote Speaker] Open Access: Global Issues & Local Implementations. CASLIN 2011 International Seminar. Brno dam, Czech Republic. June 2011.
- [Keynote Speaker] UNESCO’s Open Access Programme. Open Access: Global and Danish Challenges, sponsored by Denmark’s National Commission to UNESCO. Copenhagen, Denmark. December 2010.
- Cutting-Edge Library Services: A Primer for (Future or Current) CIOs, CTOs, and Instructional Technologists. EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, full-day pre-conference workshop. Co-author/presenter: Eric Hinsdale. Denver, Colorado. November 2009.
- Object-Based Learning to Teach Information Literacy Skills. Trinity University Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Faculty Workshop. Co-author/presenter: David Del Testa. San Antonio, Texas. May 2009.
- The World War II Poster Project: Faculty-Library-IT Collaboration for Information Literacy. EDUCAUSE 2008 Conference. Orlando, Florida. October 2008.
- The World War II Poster Project: Equipe de recherche en Technologie educative (ERT) (The Research Team for Educational Technology): “Culture informationnelle et curriculum documentaire: “la naissance du projet scientifique.” Lille, France. Co-author/presenter: David Del Testa.
- Building and Managing a Successful Digital Repository in DSpace. Panelist. Mid-Atlantic Digital Library Conference. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. July 2008.
- Welcoming Remarks — Opening Plenary Session. Mid-Atlantic Digital Library Conference. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. July 2008.
- Building an Institutional Repository in Two Months or Less: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. CNI Spring 2008 Task Force Meeting. April 2008.
- Digital Natives, Visual Resources, and the Challenges of Copyright. NITLE Copyright & Digital Materials Symposium. Easton, Pennsylvania. October 2007.
- Home-Grown Help: Digital Library Education for Staff. ASIST Annual Meeting. Austin, Texas. November 2006.
