Christine Elizabeth McCarthy
Yale University Library
Director, Preservation and Conservation
New Haven, CT
Christine McCarthy is the Director of Preservation & Conservation Services for the Yale University Library. She oversees a program that include general and special collections conservation, preventative conservation, print and audio-visual reformatting, digital photography, exhibitions preparation, and digital preservation. Christine’s work as a professional conservator has been focused on academic research library collections. From 2000-2003 she managed the conservation laboratory for the University of Maryland Libraries. In 2003, Christine became the MIT Libraries’ first conservation for rare books and special collections, setting up their laboratory and designing this new aspect of their preservation program. From 2006 to January of 2008, Christine served as the head of conservation for the University of Chicago Library, where she once again started a new program, hired and trained conservation technicians, and worked with architects to design a new state-of-the-art conservation lab as part of a planned new library addition. Christine served as the chief conservator for the Yale Library from 2008 until July of 2017, when she was appointed department director. While at Yale she oversaw the design of and move into a new 8000 sq ft conservation laboratory, She actively promotes preservation and conservation expertise in service of teaching and learning at Yale. Christine began her conservation career at Brandeis University in 1992 as a conservation technician. Christine left Brandeis in 1997 to pursue advanced studies in conservation at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a Masters of Library and Information Science and an Advanced Certificate in Conservation in 2000. Christine completed her internship requirement working with Jan Paris at the Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC-Chapel Hill in NC. She is a professional associate member of AIC.