Speaker: Kimberly Armstrong, Director of Library Initiatives, Big Ten Academic Alliance

As leader of the Library Initiatives of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Kim works with the directors of libraries to identify and facilitate cooperative programs, and serves as liaison to library-related working groups. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in music from Appalachian State University, and an M.S. in Library Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has more than twenty years’ experience working in academic libraries and consortia, the most recent eight years as Deputy Director at the CIC Center for Library Initiatives, where she was a 2015 University of Illinois' Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence Award winner. Kim has led and managed collections, licensing and public service units and programs, and is a frequent speaker and writer on open access, scholarly communication, and large-scale collaboration.