Dr. Gary Shaffer serves as the director of the City of Glendale’s Library, Arts & Culture Department and as President of the California Library Association. Prior to serving the City of Glendale he worked for the University of Southern California as Assistant Dean of USC Libraries and headed the Library and Information Science program at USC’s Marshall School of Business and the Center for Library Leadership and Management. He still teaches for the program at USC. Shaffer is the former chief executive officer of the Tulsa City-County Library, a 24-location, award-winning public library system located in Northeastern Oklahoma. He has also worked for the Brooklyn, Los Angeles County, and Sacramento public libraries.
Shaffer is the author of the books Emotional Intelligence & Critical Thinking for Library Leaders and Creating the Sustainable Public Library: The Triple Bottom Line Approach. He also co-edited the book The Sustainable Library’s Cookbook with Dr. Raymond Pun. He received his Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership from Simmons University in Boston. In addition to his doctorate, Shaffer holds masters’ degrees in library and information science (MLIS), professional writing (MPW), and intellectual property law (LL.M.). He was twice-elected to the board of the Public Library Association and has also served as councilor-at-large to the American Library Association Council. He currently serves on the executive board of the Southern California Library Cooperative (immediate past chair) and Califa (a library consortium as treasurer). He has also advocated on behalf of libraries and archives for copyright reform at the UNs’ World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva. In 2006, he was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker: One of 50 people shaping the future of libraries. Prior to working in libraries, Shaffer supervised Fortune 500 accounts for various advertising agencies.