Naomi Earp to Head Equal Employment Office
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Naomi C. Earp as director for the new Office of Opportunity, Inclusiveness and Compliance, formerly the Office of Workforce Diversity. Her appointment was effective June 8, 2009.
Earp was one of four U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners. She served as chair and chief executive officer of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from September 2006-January 2009 and vice chair from 2003 to 2006.
Prior to her appointment as a member of the EEOC, Earp managed EEO programs and led innovative diversity and inclusiveness initiatives at the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce and the National Institutes of Health.
Earp brings to the Library a depth and breadth of experience in EEO, affirmative action, diversity programs, inter-generational projects and the use of corporate or agency values to expand diversity beyond race and gender, while promoting inclusion, improving compliance and facilitating communication.
The Office of Opportunity, Inclusiveness and Compliance (OIC) is responsible for administering key workforce diversity programs to engender an environment in which all employees can accomplish the Library’s mission and reach their full potential without systemic barriers and discrimination.
Widely known and respected for her ability to foresee and analyze policy issues and anticipate their impact on recruiting, retention, training, and succession planning, Earp will work closely with Human Resources Services. Together they will design inclusiveness initiatives to target under-represented groups in the Library’s workforce and to reach diverse labor pools of potential applicants with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to fill a wide range of positions throughout the Library.
Roberta I. Shaffer Appointed Law Librarian of Congress
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has announced the appointment of Roberta I. Shaffer to the position of Law Librarian of Congress, effective Aug. 30.
Shaffer graduated cum laude from Vassar College with an A.B. degree in political science/demography, with highest honors from Emory University with a master’s degree in law librarianship and cum laude with a J.D. from Tulane University School of Law. She is admitted to the Texas, District of Columbia and U.S. Supreme Court bars.
Shaffer brings to the position a rich and diverse background in academia, management, law librarianship and technology. In 1980, she was appointed director of the University of Houston Law Center’s Legal Communications Program and associate director of the center’s Law and Technology Program. In 1984, she became the first person appointed to the position of special assistant to the Law Librarian in the Library of Congress.
In 1987, Shaffer was named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law in Israel. The Fulbright grant allowed her to participate in a legal database development program sponsored by the Portuguese Institute for Science and Technology and Ministry of Justice. Upon her return to the U.S., she served for a year as director of the law library at the George Washington University National Law Center Library during the director’s sabbatical.
From 1990 until 1999, she served concurrently as adjunct coordinator of the law librarianship specialization at the School of Library and Information Science at the Catholic University of America and as director of research services at the law firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. In 1999, she was appointed and served for two years as dean and professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin. After working briefly with the Special Libraries Association and as a consultant, in 2002 she accepted the position of director of external relations and program development and professor at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, where she implemented the Master of Information Management (MIM) degree.
Shaffer returned to the Library of Congress in 2005 as executive director of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee/Federal Library Network (FLICC/FEDLINK). In this position, she has overseen procurement, provided advocacy and advice on technology and managed education and training for a federal program servicing more than 1,500 federal information professionals and 130 vendors.
Shaffer has been a long-standing member of the American Bar Association, the American Association of Law Libraries and the World Future Society. A past officer of the International Association of Law Libraries, she is currently serving as the chairperson of the Information Policy Committee of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information.
