Chancellor Gardner appoints Pawlowski as OhioLINK executive director

Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Randy Gardner has named Amy Pawlowski executive director of OhioLINK, Ohio’s academic library consortium, effective immediately. Pawlowski joined OhioLINK in 2013 as deputy director for operations and e-licensing. She has served in an interim capacity since February.

“Amy has proven her leadership through this challenging pandemic environment,” said Chancellor Gardner. “Her valuable expertise in libraries and technology will ensure that OhioLINK continues to find innovative ways to make higher education more accessible and more affordable for Ohio’s students.”

In addition to her new role as executive director, she will continue to lead negotiations with publishers and information vendors to acquire shared electronic resources for OhioLINK’s 117 member libraries and more than 800,00 students across the state.

“It’s been such a privilege to work with Amy on OhioLINK’s strategic initiatives this past year,” said Aimee deChambeau, chair of the OhioLINK Library Advisory Council and dean of University Libraries at the University of Akron. “Amy’s leadership, coupled with her deep understanding of our organizations’ needs and long tenure collaborating with the OhioLINK library community, gives us great confidence in what we’ll be able to accomplish together.”

For more than 27 years, OhioLINK has provided access to online resources essential to research and learning at Ohio institutions of higher education. Ohio higher education students, faculty and staff interact with OhioLINK resources every 1.1 seconds. Delivering both IT infrastructure and content negotiation, OhioLINK provides member institutions access to digital research collections that rival top university libraries at a fraction of the cost. The organization also manages collaborative services, including statewide eTutoring and Affordable Learning initiatives. OhioLINK is a member of the Ohio Technology Consortium (OH-TECH), the technology and information division of the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

“I am excited to lead the talented team at OhioLINK and our dedicated members, whose work to improve access to Ohio’s learning resources—while simultaneously containing costs—has never been more critical,” Pawlowski said.

Pawlowski has nearly 20 years of experience in special, public and academic libraries and library-related private industry, with expertise in technology and the e-books/e-journals publishing ecosystem. Prior to joining OhioLINK, Pawlowski worked with the Cleveland Public Library, CLEVNET and Overdrive, Inc. She also served as archivist for the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra. Pawlowski holds a Master of Library and Information Science from Kent State University, and a master’s degree in music from the University of Hartford.

“Our staff and membership have always maintained an incredible level of collaboration and community, and the pandemic only underscored their shared commitment to serving Ohio’s students, teachers, researchers and staff,” Pawlowski said. “Building on that shared synergy will mean great things for higher education in the state of Ohio.”

In 2019, Pawlowski was named a Change Agent by Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers for her role in negotiating a groundbreaking, inclusive-access textbook agreement with six major publishers, saving Ohio students approximately $39.7 million annually. She is a frequent presenter at library conferences and active in professional organizations. Pawlowski currently serves on advisory boards for EBSCO Books, Springer Nature, and the Cambridge University Press (North America).