Steve Chapman - Biography
Stephen Chapman is the Project Manager at the Harvard Law School Library Digital Lab. He collaborates to build digital collections for research and education. Chapman is involved in the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, including The Islamic Heritage Project, which has cataloged and digitized hundreds of Islamic materials from Harvard’s library and museum collections.
In 2007 Chapman joined the Harvard University Library staff as Preservation Librarian for Digital Projects. Chapman coordinated digital reformatting initiatives designed to preserve, protect, and improve access to collections, ranging from printed texts to unique visual resources in special collections. The Library Digital Initiative, established in 1998, has enabled Harvard libraries to maintain and grow collections and services in the digital era. Through the activities of the Initiative, the Harvard libraries have developed systems, policies, and services to support the "collecting" of digital resources at Harvard, similar to the infrastructure the libraries have long had for collecting physical research resources.
Prior to Harvard, Chapman was at Cornell University, where he contributed to the groundbreaking work underway in the Department of Preservation and Conservation to design, implement, and evaluate digital conversion projects and to establish guidelines for best practice. He is co-author with Anne Kenney of Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 1996). This widely acclaimed manual was created to support the many workshops that have been offered by the Department of Preservation and Conservation to staff at Cornell, and libraries and archives throughout North America and abroad.
Chapman received a B.A. in History from George Washington University, an M.A. in English from Boston University, and an M.L.S. from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. At SUNY, he was supported by a Title II-B fellowship in preservation administration.
Links:
Harvard University Library Open Collections Program
The Islamic Heritage Project
Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives (Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 1996)
June 2012
