James G. Neal is an American librarian, library administrator, and a prominent figure in American and international library associations. Neal is widely active in national and international forums in the areas of copyright and scholarly communication. From 2001 to 2014 he was Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, and he now serves as University Librarian Emeritus. At Columbia, he focused on the development of the digital library, special collections, global resources, instructional technology, library facility construction and renovation, and electronic scholarship. Before taking up his position at Columbia, he was Dean of University Libraries at Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University and held administrative positions at Penn State's library, Notre Dame's library, and the City University of New York's library. In 2007, Neal received the Hugh C. Atkinson Award from the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the American Library Association honored Neal with the 2015 Joseph W. Lippincott Award. In April 2016, Neal was elected president of the American Library Association for 2017-2018.
Columbia Librarian
The University Librarian at Columbia is charged with overseeing:
Columbia's Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research. He participates on key academic, technology, budget and policy groups at the University.
In addition, Neal participated in key academic, technology, budget and policy groups in the University. At Columbia, he has focused in particular on the development of the digital library, special collections, global resources, instructional technology, building construction/renovation, and fundraising programs.
Columbia-Google digitization partnership
Neal was ultimately responsible for Columbia's participation in the Google Books Library Project, which involves a series of agreements between Google and major international libraries through which a collection of its public domain books will be scanned in their entirety and made available for free to the public online. Neal moderated the institutional debate about anticipated consequences inherent in conventional content-vs.-collection strategies; and sometimes he took on the role of public spokesman.
Librarianship
Neal is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences, consultant and published author, with a focus in the areas of scholarly communication, intellectual property, digital library programs, organizational change and human resource development. He has worked on editorial boards of journals in the field of academic librarianship. He has represented the American library community in testimony on copyright matters before Congressional committees, was an advisor to the U.S. delegation at the World Intellectual Property Organization diplomatic conference on copyright, has worked on copyright policy and advisory groups for universities and for professional and higher education associations. In 2019 he was named a Senior Policy Fellow for the American Library Association to advise the Washington Office on Public Policy and Advocacy on licensing and copyright.
