It is with pleasure that I confirm Matt Marostica as permanent Assistant University Librarian for Public Services effective 1 January 2016. Matt has served admirably in the interim role since Chris Bourg’s departure at the end of January 2015.

In his role as Assistant University Librarian for Public Services at Stanford University Libraries (SUL), Matt provides strategic direction and high-level management to many public-facing areas in SUL: the Information Center; History and Social Sciences; International and Area Studies; and the Education, Art, Music, and East Asia branch libraries. Matt has also been actively engaged with the social science data community nationally and internationally. He is working to more closely integrate social science subject matter expertise with social science data services across SUL.
 
Matt earned a PhD in Comparative Politics as well as a JD from the University of California, Berkeley. The earlier stages of Matt’s career involved research and teaching concerning religion and politics in Latin America. An expert on Evangelical Christian movements, Matt is one of a group of scholars who changed accepted understandings of the role of charismatic practices across a wide variety of Evangelical denominations. Matt also has considerable experience in commercial litigation, having spent six years representing Indian tribes and city governments in a variety of civil actions.
 
Regarding this new assignment, Matt has said, “SUL’s commitment to high levels of expertise in all of its departments allows us to anticipate research needs across the humanities and social sciences. I look forward to building on that established base expertise to staff all of our libraries with experts who are prepared to engage with Stanford researchers and to serve their diverse research needs.”
 
Since the beginning of Matt’s interim responsibilities, he has retained and recruited several excellent staff members and has the respect and cooperation of those reporting to him. In addition, he has represented SUL admirably in working with our collaborators and collaborators-to-be. His first presentation to the SUL Advisory Council (on future developments in SUL’s Public Services) got rave reviews.
 
In the year of his interim role as AUL/Public Services, I have seen Matt’s ability to envision not just better services for library patrons, but better training and motivation for the staff under his direction. Members of the SUL leadership team join me in observing that Matt is already a considerable contributor to the strategic aspects of our work in SUL for Stanford. Matt has earned this promotion, and we are all glad that he has accepted it.

Michael A. Keller
University Librarian