Frazier elected president-elect of national association

Ken Frazier, director of the General Library System for UW–Madison, is now president-elect of the Association of Research Libraries.

The association is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., comprising 121 major North American research and academic libraries.

In the past year, Frazier spearheaded the board’s creation of Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), which he chairs. SPARC is an alliance of libraries that aims to foster more competition in scholarly communication. It is in the process of creating partnerships with publishers who are developing quality but economical alternatives to existing high-price publications.

Frazier has been director of the General Library System since 1992 and a member of the university’s library staff since 1978.