DPLA Announces Appointment of Niko Pfund to Board of Directors

The Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce the appointment of Niko Pfund to its distinguished Board of Directors. Pfund is the Global Academic Publisher of Oxford University Press, and President of Oxford University Press, USA.

“The principles of education, dissemination, and access that lie at the core of DPLA’s mission are unimpeachable,” Pfund said. “I’m very pleased to be involved in such a valuable, even noble, enterprise.”

Pfund, a graduate of Amherst College, began his career at Oxford in 1987 as an editorial assistant in law and social science before moving to New York University Press in 1990. At NYU Press, he was an editor and then editor in chief before becoming director in 1996.  He returned to Oxford in 2000 in the role of Academic Publisher and is responsible for oversight of the Press’s scholarly and research publishing across the humanities, social sciences, science, law, and medicine, spanning the Press’s offices in Oxford, New York, and Delhi. A frequent speaker on publishing, scholarship, and media, he has given talks at the Library of Congress, the World Bank, and many colleges, universities, libraries, scholarly conferences, and publishing institutes. In 2012, Pfund was named a Notable Person of the Year by Publishers Weekly.

“Niko’s broad knowledge of publishing and the media will contribute significantly to advancing DPLA’s commitment to providing content of interest to people of all ages and to everyone from scholars to school-age children,” said Amy Ryan, President of the Board of Directors.

“We couldn’t be happier that Niko Pfund has agreed to join the DPLA board,” said Dan Cohen, DPLA’s Executive Director. “To have a publisher of his great experience and range will be a tremendous asset to our organization.”

Working closely with Cohen, the Board seeks to fulfill DPLA’s broad commitment to openness, inclusiveness, and accessibility, and it endeavors towards those ends in the best interest of its stakeholders, employees, future users, and other affected parties. The Board supports the DPLA’s goal of creating and maintaining a free, open, and sustainable national digital library resource.

Full biographies of the entire DPLA Board of Directors can be found at https://pro.dp.la/about-dpla-pro/board.