Western Reserve Historical Society Appoints New Library Director
Richard Shrake will oversee WRHS Research Library beginning in June 2014
Cleveland, OH— The Western Reserve Historical Society announced today that Richard Shrake will join the museum as the Director of the Research Library. Shrake, a native of Akron, Ohio, was most recently the Associate Librarian for Technical Services at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Shrake has been a Certified Archivist since 2005 and is an active member of the Academy of Certified Archivists, serving on both the Nominations Committee and the Exam Development Committee. As a member of the Society of American Archivists, he has presented several papers and conducted workshops for a number of industry conferences.
“Having Richard joining the WRHS staff will magnify the presence of the WRHS archives in the community as well as provide greater cohesion and direction to the important initiatives facing the library. Libraries are undergoing monumental changes, and having an experienced director steeped in ‘best standards’ of the industry will assure the preservation of the priceless material we hold in our archives and the growth of the library in the future,” says Kelly Falcone-Hall, Interim CEO at WRHS. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to have Richard at the helm of the Research Library at this critical juncture in digital innovation, preservation challenges, tight budgets, and meeting the priorities within our Strategic Plan.”
The WRHS Research Library is home to over 4 million photos, countless community history archives, genealogy resources, and collections that span local and national history. In one of its most recent projects, the Research Library made over 2,800 finding aids available online through OhioLINK. OhioLINK is an online repository that allows anyone with a computer to access the digitized collections within an institution’s auspices. To date, WRHS is the institution that has contributed the most digitized finding aids to OhioLINK.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with compelling collections and a dedicated staff while also getting to relocate to my hometown in Northeast Ohio,” said Shrake. “I am eager to become a part of WRHS’ legacy of encouraging discovery and understanding of the region’s history.”