New library dean comes to BGSU by way of South Africa

An Illinois educator has been named the new dean of libraries and learning resources.

Lorraine J. Haricombe, associate dean for the public service division of Northern Illinois University Libraries, has been named to fill the position vacated by Linda Dobb, who became executive vice president of BGSU last year. The appointment is effective at the end of June.
As dean, Haricombe will oversee 25 full-time faculty, 80 full-time staff members, 250 part-time student staff members, and collections totaling to more than 2 million volumes.
Haricombe has served as associate dean at Northern Illinois since 1998. The prior six years she was head of the circulation department at NIU and was involved in library and statewide initiatives to prepare libraries for emerging changes in the profession, including initiatives to serve regional distance education centers.

From 1975-86, she was library director at Penninsula Technikon in the Republic of South Africa.
Haricombe received a bachelor's degree and a graduate degree from the University of the Western Cape in the Republic of South Africa and a diploma in higher education from the University of South Africa. She earned both her master's degree and doctorate in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A member of several professional organizations, including the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries, she has written several publications and co-edited the book, Creating the Agile Library for a Changing Environment, published by Greenwood Press in 1998.