Aaron Elkiss will officially join the staff at HathiTrust as Enterprise Architect beginning September 2019.
Aaron is already known to many staff at HathiTrust and HathiTrust members. As senior systems programmer on the Architecture and Engineering team in the Library Information Technology division at the University of Michigan, Aaron has been working on HathiTrust systems and software since 2010. An enthusiastic advocate of the mission of HathiTrust, he has worked on multiple aspects of technological projects for the HathiTrust Digital Library. Most notably, he led an overhaul of the HathiTrust ingest system to better handle material from a wider variety of sources, and he has continued to lead the technical backend work to improve these services over the last several years. With this system, HathiTrust has grown from approximately 5 million volumes to more than 17 million volumes digitized by more than 50 different contributors, including a significant number of materials digitized locally by our members.
A leader on UM Library’s IT team, Aaron has promoted greater transparency and stronger communications, and supported the development of more consistent and active management of the UM Library’s portfolio of technological services, including HathiTrust’s applications and repository functions.
As a part of the Executive Director staff, Aaron will develop the strategic vision for HathiTrust’s long-term technical direction and lead that vision’s execution. We anticipate significant investments in the next three to five years to update, redevelop, or replace many of the applications, APIs, and systems comprising the HathiTrust Digital Library, and the core systems and processes of managing our repository. Aaron will provide leadership for planning, developing, and maintaining HathiTrust’s current and future technology infrastructure. In his new capacity he will work as a key partner with the Director of Services and Operations and other HathiTrust staff and technical teams at the University of Michigan Library, HathiTrust Research Center, and California Digital Library.
On September 9, Aaron will move offices down the street to begin working in his new capacity on HathiTrust’s technical development. Please join us in welcoming Aaron to his role within HathiTrust!