Kathleen Burlingame

Kathleen Burlingame heads the electronic resources cataloging unit, managing metadata creation, data wrangling and migrations for online materials across The Penn Libraries. She collaborates with content selectors, acquisitions units, front-end developers, and vendors to ensure seamless discovery and access to these resources.

Kathleen also works to foster discussion, community, and research exploring critical and ethical issues (e.g., bias, harmful language, privacy, data sovereignty) in metadata and discovery. She co-chairs The Penn Libraries’ DEI and Discovery Working Group, was a founding convener for the LD4 Ethics affinity group, and recently co-edited Ethics in Linked Data (2023).

Before coming to The University of Pennsylvania, Kathleen worked in a wide variety of roles and institutions including cataloging and curatorial work at The Morgan and Folger Shakespeare libraries and collection development and information literacy instruction at Long Island University. Prior to becoming a librarian, she was a sales manager for a publishing subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Kathleen has a BA from Oberlin College, an MLS and MA in English and American Literature from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a certificate in UX Design from the University of the Arts.