Yolanda Cooper is the Vice Provost and Lindseth Family University Librarian, a role she has held since January 1, 2022. Cooper manages the Kelvin Smith Library, a dynamic, technology-rich, highly collaborative organization with resources, services, tools, and expertise to advance the success of students, faculty, and staff at Case Western Reserve University. KSL has an operating budget of nearly $8 million, a library staff of approximately 60, and more than 3.3 million print and electronic resource materials.
KSL is also home to the Kulas Music Collection composed of books, scores, media, microforms, and music periodicals; the Special Collections, which preserves, describes, and provides access to unique primary source archival collections and rare books; the University Archives, also administered by KSL staff, which acquires and preserves the history and records of the University; and the Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship which provides technology, tools, resources, and expertise to explore research and development in new ways and advance the creation and communication of scholarship.
The Kelvin Smith Libraries focus on creating an environment of inclusion, diversity, equity, and belonging; building and leveraging resources, expertise, and space to enable new knowledge; to achieve operational excellence and user-centered services; to extend our outreach, engagement and impact through campus and community collaboration, and partnerships; and to embrace change, innovation, and experimentation to discover new and emerging technologies to enhance operations, tools, services, and resources.
Cooper came to CWRU as an experienced professional in the academic research library space, having served in leadership roles with various university libraries since 1999. Prior to joining CWRU, Cooper served as dean and university librarian at Emory University.
At Emory, Cooper worked with staff to develop a new strategic roadmap for the library, revise the organizational structure, migrate to a new integrated library system, build a digital library program; renovate the Stuart A. Rose Special Collections Library and other areas of the library, and collaborated with Georgia Institute of Technology to create a state-of-the-art, 55,000-square-foot Library Service Center to house a shared collection of books and other materials.
Cooper earned both her undergraduate and master’s degrees from Indiana University, where she also served as assistant dean for libraries human resources from 1999 to 2003. In addition to her work at Emory University, she has also held leadership positions at the University of Virginia and the University of Miami.
She is a member of the Grolier Club (America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles), Society of American Archivists and the American Library Association.