Melissa Gasparotto

Melissa oversees long-term planning and day-to-day oversight of the Operations Division, which includes Access Services and Resource Sharing, the Information Processing Center, Facilities, and the Libraries Research Annex (LIBRA), an offsite, high-density storage facility. She also works to develop and foster partnerships that advance the mission and priorities of the Penn Libraries.

Before coming to Penn, Melissa was Associate Director of Research Services and Institutional Partnerships for The New York Public Library’s Research Libraries. Previously she was Head of Learning & Engagement and Latin American Studies Liaison at Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick. She has held additional roles at Hunter College Library, New York University Libraries, and the School of Information at Pratt Institute.

Melissa holds a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Cultures, and an M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, from New York University. She received an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Long Island University and is currently a PhD candidate in Communication, Information and Media at Rutgers University. She has published and presented on a wide range of topics, from sustainable open access models and equitable information discovery to human rights education, critical information literacy, and digital linguistic justice.