There’s a New Deputy in Town!

The Libraries is pleased to announce Mary Augusta Thomas as the new Deputy Director.  Before accepting this position, Thomas served as Associate Director for Reader Services and Strategic Planning, a post she held since 2002. Thomas’s new responsibilities include directing the operation of the Libraries’ twenty branches in each of the museum and research institutes, working with Smithsonian staff on library planning issues to support the mission of the Smithsonian, and directing the administrative services department for the Libraries.

Thomas has demonstrated outstanding leadership in her 33 years of employment at the Smithsonian Institution. Her prior positions at the Libraries include Assistant Director for Management and Technical Services, Assistant Director for the Management and Systems Division and Manager to the Planning and Administration Office. She currently holds exclusive pan-institutional assignments as a member of both the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee and the Smithsonian Institution Executive Leadership Development Program. Active in the local and national library community, Thomas has served as councilor-at-large for two terms at the American Library Association (1999-2003, 2005-2007), president of the District of Columbia Library Association (2000), and chair of the Editorial Board of the Library Administration and Management Association (1998-2002). She currently is on the Editorial Review Board for portal: Libraries and the Academy. Thomas’s publications include An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in Smithsonian Libraries (Smithsonian Press, 2002), Information Imagineering (ALA Editions, 1998) and “Publishing for LAMA Workshop” (1997). She also stands as a long time contributor to Magazines for Libraries (Bowker) on the topic of dance magazines.

A Virginia native, Thomas holds an artium baccalaureates degree cum laude in medieval studies from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Ma. She completed a research year in medieval studies at the University of York in York, England. Thomas earned her master’s of library sciences from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She has received numerous honors, including the Distinguished Service Award from the District of Columbia Library Association (2001) and the Smithsonian Institution Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Equal Employment Opportunity (1999). —Liz O'Brien