Brenda L. Johnson is Library Director and University Librarian at the University of Chicago. Before coming to UChicago, she was Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries at Indiana University, Bloomington. Previously, Johnson was University Librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She spent more than 20 years at the University of Michigan, where she served as Associate University Librarian for Public Services, a position with responsibility over that institution’s 19 libraries. She is active in the national and international library community through service and leadership on a variety of executive boards and committees, such as the board of governors of the Open Library Environment (OLE),  board of directors of the Chicago Collections Consortium,  and member of The HistoryMakers Higher Education Advisory Board.

Johnson has become a nationally and internationally recognized voice on topics such as the rapid pace of change in information discovery and dissemination, the development of multi-institutional “collective collections,” and research and learning environments, as well as the need for library transformation that fosters scholarly engagement and support.