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Bio

bio

About Robert H. McDonald

Robert H. McDonald is Senior Vice Provost and Director of the University of Texas Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin.

His expertise and interests include teaching and learning technologies that enable libraries to better support researchers at all levels, open source software development, scholarly communications, and new model publishing.

Robert leads the Austin campus library system in fulfilling their mission to advance teaching, catalyze research, and democratize learning in order to develop critical thinkers and global citizens.

He frequently presents and writes on a variety of topics, and was editor of the E-Content column for EDUCAUSE Review in 2016 – 2017. In recent years, his research has been centered on digital libraries and large-scale humanities cyberinfrastructure, encompassing large data analysis, storage, and preservation through grant-funded and collaborative projects such as the HathiTrust Research Center. Additional research interests include integration of learning eco-systems, lean and agile frameworks in technology management, data preservation, data cyberinfrastructure, and big data analytics.

He is active professionally with a number of national and international organizations and conferences, where he currently serves on the Board of Governors for the HathiTrust and the Board of Directors for the Association of Research Libraries and the Board of Directors for the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. McDonald is also currently a member of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries Steering Committee.

Prior to joining the UT Libraries in 2025, Robert held positions at the University of Colorado Boulder, Indiana University Bloomington, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Florida State University, and Auburn University. He earned his Master of Library & Information Science degree at the University of South Carolina, and holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Georgia.

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Robert H. McDonald University of Texas Headshot Photo
Robert H. McDonald University of Colorado Headshot Photo

My Personal Website

This is my main website for items related to my professional responsibilities. If you are interested in my hobbies or other news, please check me out on robert.ly.

My Researcher Persistent Identifiers (PID)