May 25, 2010 Blane K. Dessy Appointed Executive Director of FLICC and FEDLINK

Blane K. Dessy has been named executive director of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) and the Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) at the Library of Congress, effective June 20, 2010.

“Blane Dessy brings a wealth of solid leadership experience at the local, state, and federal level,” said Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services. “He has worked collaboratively with a wide variety of libraries and governing bodies, and we are delighted that he is joining the Library of Congress.”

Dessy is currently the director of the U.S. Department of Justice Library Staff, a position he has held since 2000. In directing the law libraries that serve the department’s senior management offices and litigating divisions, Dessy has instituted a number of innovative service improvements, including a robust virtual library, a new integrated library system, a digitization program, and special programming to reach underserved constituents.

He created the Justice Librarians Council for all librarians in the Department of Justice and the Federal Law Librarians Caucus within the American Association of Law Libraries. Dessy also has served in several acting capacities at the Department of Justice, including as director of Human Resources, director of Equal Employment Opportunity, director of Facilities and Administrative Services, and deputy assistant attorney general for Human Resources and Administration.

From 1994 to 2000, Dessy served as the first director of the newly established National Library of Education in the U.S. Department of Education. There he created a national network of education libraries, directed the ERIC Program, and created ED PUBS, a performance-based contract to manage the distribution of all Department of Education publications. Prior to becoming library director, Dessy was a policy analyst for Federal Library Programs and senior program manager for the Office of Research.

In 1986, Dessy was appointed state librarian of Alabama and led the Alabama Public Library Service in its provision of statewide research services, including directing the Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. At the State Library of Ohio, he served as assistant director for Library Services and as a library consultant with the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

After earning a bachelor's degree in English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree in library science at the University of Pittsburgh, Dessy held posts as the director of the libraries in two Pennsylvania counties, Juniata County and Mifflin County.

Dessy is an adjunct instructor in Library Management and at the Federal Libraries Institute at the Catholic University of America, School of Library and Information Science.

FLICC fosters excellence in federal library and information services through interagency cooperation. Created in 1965 and headquartered at the Library of Congress, FLICC also makes recommendations on federal library and information policies, programs and procedures to federal agencies and to others concerned with libraries and information centers. FLICC provides guidance and direction to FEDLINK, which serves federal libraries and information centers as their purchasing, training and resource-sharing consortium.