Jones to Retire from Wesleyan May 31

Barbara Jones, the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian, will retire from Wesleyan effective May 31.

Jones came to Wesleyan from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003. As the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian, she has worked with students, faculty, Information Technology Services, and others to recreate library spaces and services, including the Olin Information Commons, Jakobson Periodical Reading Room, the Conservation Lab, and the renovated Science Library stacks and study areas. She has been a leader in the CTW library group, has helped make the consortium a model for collaboration among member libraries, and played an important role in securing Mellon Foundation grant to aid in the sharing of collections. By reaching out to work with others at Wesleyan and beyond, Jones has developed relationships that have proved essential in providing dynamic, innovative library services for Wesleyan students and faculty.

Jones has been a tireless advocate of intellectual freedom and privacy in the digital age. She has hosted workshops and presented papers on the subject in Africa, East Asia and Latin America. For her efforts, Jones was awarded the 2007 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.