Transitions in Special Collections & University Archives

Dr. Bill Finley

With mixed emotions, we would like to report on several staffing changes within the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).  On August 1, 2012, Dr. William “Bill” Finley stepped down as Head of Special Collections and University Archives to begin his phased retirement at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG).  Stepping in to assist with this transition, Dr. Keith Gorman has been appointed interim head of the department.  During the coming year, Bill Finley will work as the Special Collections Librarian on a part-time basis as well as teach several courses for the Department of Library & Information Studies at UNCG.

 Upon his arrival at UNCG in 1998, Bill Finley became Head of the Special Collections and University Archives Department where he has not only served as head of the department, but also as the Special Collections Librarian.  In his fourteen years at the University, Dr. Finley has overseen the expansion of the department’s instructional services and collections.  Bill has noted on more than one occasion that one of his greatest joys is finding just the right rare book to enhance one of the many collections housed in SCUA.

Dr. Finley received his BA from the College of William and Mary, MA in English from The University of Kentucky, PhD in English from Duke University, and MLS from The University of South Carolina.  He began his academic career as an English professor at Old Dominion University in 1970 and held similar positions at Duke University from 1973 to 1976 and Concord College from 1976 to 1987.  From 1988 to 1992, he was an archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.  Bill also served as Head of Special Collections at the College of Charleston from 1992 to 1998. 

Dr. Keith Gorman

Dr. Keith Gorman takes the helm of SCUA with a rich and varied experience in history, teaching, and archival and museum management.  Prior to joining SCUA as assistant head in April 2010, he served as the executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown, Massachusetts.  Along with his museum work, Dr. Gorman has worked in a number of archives from private repositories to the Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington, DC.  During his teaching career, he taught European history at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts.  Gorman has a BA in history from Loyola University in Chicago, MA and PhD in European history from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and a MLS from Simmons College.  He also taught courses in archival theory and research methods at Simmons’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science. 

During his time at UNCG, Gorman has helped oversee an eighteen month construction project and the relocation of staff and collections.  Keith also directed his energy to enhancing the department’s reference and instructional services, the processing of hidden collections, and expanding of the number of digital projects.  Asked about his new position, he expressed great excitement about the department’s plans and admiration for its staff.  For the coming year, he noted that SCUA established a robust set of objectives that include reviewing collection development policies,  broadening community outreach, employing MPLP processing, as well as adopting tools and policies to collect and preserve born digital records.  Gorman’s research interests range from the role archives play in a community’s collective memory to the growth of digital humanities and its impact on research.