Jason W. Dean

Jason W. Dean is Assistant Librarian and head of the special formats unit at the University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville. His areas of interest include the semantic web, American color plate books, user-centered design, books and their role in United States History, and the history of the book.

Dean received a B.B.S. in History cum laude from Hardin-Simmons University (2005), and an M.S. (2010) in Library and Information Science from Syracuse University. Prior to joining the University Libraries in 2013, he was Cataloger & Technical Services Librarian at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (2011-2013).

Dean’s research seeks to emphasize the primacy of the user and the book as physical object in libraries. He published the first scholarly work on the collection of 19th American color plate books at Crystal Bridges, and he seeks to continue researching both books that are uniquely American artifacts, as well as helping users of the catalog discover these significant resources through the advent of linked open data in libraries. Furthermore, Dean is exploring the role of user-centered design in both library catalogs and library metadata.

More current biographical information may be available at http://www.jasonwdean.com.