Interim Staff Named as Ben Daigle departs Ohio Five for University of Dayton

Posted on May 17, 2021

Ohio Five announced today, with both great appreciation and regret, that Director of Consortial Library Services Ben Daigle has accepted the position of Director of Information Systems and Digital Access at the University of Dayton Libraries. Ohio Five and its committees congratulate Ben for this significant new role at one of our state’s leading universities while we reflect on all he has accomplished for us and our colleges as we prepare to find his successor. Ben’s last day will be Friday, June 4.

Ben joined Ohio Five in March 2015 to oversee the Ohio Five’s joint library system CONSORT and lead the consortial work of library peer groups and Ohio Five’s continuing work in digital scholarship. He also managed an ever-growing number of library contracts that provided annual savings to the colleges. In 2017, he assumed the role of project director of the Ohio Five Mellon Foundation funded “Digital Collections: From Projects to Pedagogy and Scholarship,” managing multiple collaborative faculty projects, a first-ever post baccalaureate researcher, and numerous faculty development workshops. Building on this work, Ben led the Ohio Five in the creation of the Collaborative for Digital Engagement and Experience (CODEX) to support the integration of critical digital practices in the curriculum. He was instrumental in securing a first-time grant of $250,000 from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation which will fund CODEX through 2024.

Ben’s depth of knowledge and versatility have been essential to Ohio Five and the development of our library and digital engagement programs. "We have been so fortunate to have the best of two worlds in Ben: a capable and imaginative leader who built the CODEX project and its growing community and an experienced library systems expert who continually improved our CONSORT system," commented Executive Director Sarah Stone. "We wish him well in his next exciting professional chapter."

Ohio Five will announce plans for a search for Ben’s replacement in the coming weeks. In the interim, Ohio Five Library Systems Analyst Matt McNemar will serve as an interim role as Library Systems Manager. Jacob Heil, Digital Scholarship Librarian at The College of Wooster and Director of its CoRE (Collaborative Research Environment), will serve as interim co-director for the July CODEX Summer Institute, joining current co-director Heather Fitz Gibbon, Professor of Sociology at The College of Wooster.