DPLA Announces Appointment of Sarah Burnes to Board of Directors

The Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Burnes to its Board of Directors. Burnes is an agent for The Gernert Company, a prominent literary agency located in New York City.

After stints in the editorial departments of Houghton Mifflin, the Knopf group, and Little, Brown, Sarah Burnes became an agent in 2001. Joining The Gernert Company in 2005, she now represents adult fiction writers (Alice McDermott and Tony Earley among them); children’s fiction writers (New York Times bestsellers Margaret Stohl and Pseudonymous Bosch); and journalists and critics (New York Times Magazine contributor Jon Gertner and Freeman’s John Freeman). The awards her writers have either won or been shortlisted for include the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Story Prize, the Los Angeles Times First Book Prize, the Whiting Writer’s Award, and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award; and they have received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. Sarah also sits on the board of the non-profit progressive publisher The New Press and lives with her husband and three children in Brooklyn, NY.

“Sarah’s deep knowledge of authors and publishing coupled with her commitment to learning and reading makes her an ideal board member for the DPLA,” said Amy Ryan, DPLA Board Chair. “We welcome her ideas, expertise and vision as DPLA expands our vision to reach out to children throughout the country.”

“Sarah’s incredible experience, intelligence, and the way she understands and connects with authors make her a wonderful addition to the DPLA board,” said executive director Dan Cohen. “She will undoubtedly help us make sense of the changing landscape for writers and their readers.”

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.