The Corning Museum of Glass today announced the hire of Richard J. Urban, Ph.D. as its new digital asset manager and strategist. Urban brings more than 20 years of experience working in museum, library and cultural heritage informatics. He most recently served as an assistant professor at Florida State University’s College of Communications and Information. In his new role, Urban will direct the implementation of the new Piction digital asset management system, and collaboratively set and implement a strategic vision for how these assets can benefit CMoG’s current and future audiences. Urban will begin his new position on December 19, 2016.
Richard Urban, Digital Asset Manager and Strategist
“I’ve been a long-time fan of Richard’s leadership in the cultural heritage informatics community and I’m so thrilled to have the opportunity to work together and bring his vision to CMoG,” said Scott Sayre, the chief digital officer. “CMoG’s Digital Media Team is very excited to begin working with Richard in setting the stage for how to further bring the diverse collections of museum and library to life both internally as well as on the international stage. Richard will also further strengthen our institutional initiatives in digital preservation.”
In 2012, Urban joined the faculty of Florida State University’s College of Communications and Information (FSU-CCI) where, in addition to his teaching duties, he conducted research on metadata, knowledge representation, and computer-human interactions for cultural heritage collections. His experience with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Digital Collections and Content Project, and the Collaborative Digitization Program as well as the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Historical Society of Delaware, informed and shaped his interest in library, archive, and museum digitization projects.
“Richard’s experience working on community standards and with large-scale digitization projects like Colorado Heritage and the IMLS Digital Collections and Content project will be a great asset for the Rakow Library and CMoG as a whole,” said Jim Galbraith, CMoG’s chief librarian. “I see many exciting opportunities ahead in collaborating with Richard on projects ranging from the pragmatic to groundbreaking.”
Urban earned a doctorate (2012) and a master’s (2006) in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; a master’s in History from the University of Delaware, and a bachelor’s in History from Pennsylvania State University. He has published articles for Museums and the Web, the Research Data Alliance, the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications; and has led workshops and panels for the American Society for Information Science and Technology and the Maryland Institute for Technology and the Humanities, among others.
CMoG’s Digital Media Team has produced projects such as GlassApp (2015), the Pyrex Potluck website (2015), Techniques of Renaissance Venetian Glassblowing (2016), and the Blaschkas Around the World interactive in the Fragile Legacy exhibition.