Vice Provost and University Librarian Ann D. Thornton is pleased to announce the appointment of Benjamin Armintor as Director of Digital Library and Scholarly Technologies (DLST) at Columbia University Libraries.

Armintor assumed the role on September 18, overseeing digital library, web services, scholarly technology systems, and applications supporting digital preservation storage and access.

"This is a transformative moment for technology in research across the University, and there are unique opportunities in the intersection of talented staff, vast collection resources, and institutional ambition at the Libraries. Combined with Columbia's history of high-impact work in digital libraries, this all points to remarkable work ahead of us and I'm excited to be a part of it," Armintor said of the Director position.

Ben has served as Head of Development Infrastructure and Applications since 2017 and has been a member of DLST since 2006. Prior to joining Columbia, Ben served as a Systems Analyst at University of Texas at Austin among other positions in IT and the Department of Anthropology. Ben participated in the DLF/CLIR Leading Change Institute in 2018 and has served on several national projects and working groups, including METRO NY, Samvera Partners, Fedora Commons, and DuraSpace. He is currently a committer on two national projects, Blacklight (the underlying foundation for CLIO, Academic Commons, and DLC), and Samvera. Ben participates regularly at many forums and conferences, most recently at DLF, Blacklight Virtual Summit, code4Lib, Samvera, and It Takes a Village Open Source Sustainability.

“We are thrilled to appoint Ben Armintor as Director of DLST,” said Rob Cartolano, Associate Vice President of Technology and Preservation. “His experience and knowledge will be instrumental in developing innovative and sustainable applications and systems ensuring discovery, access, and preservation to Columbia’s incredible and diverse collections to support teaching, learning, and research.”

Ben holds a Master of Arts in Social Anthropology from University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Texas A&M University.