Maureen McCormick Harlow

Originally from upstate New York, Maureen holds master’s degrees in Library Science (with a concentration in Archives and Records Management) and Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, she was an ESOPI-21 fellow, an IMLS-funded grant program that focused on information stewardship, particularly the stewardship of public, digital information.

A history major as an undergraduate, Maureen became interested in digital preservation because of a personal interest in the history of the last 50 years, an historical period that falls between history and political science in academic settings. As a result of its place in a gray area between academic disciplines, she found it difficult to research. Maureen says that “Working with digital objects, I get to help future researchers who are just like I was in college: curious about things that happened recently, but unsure of where to look for reliable information.”

Currently she is the NDSR resident at the National Library of Medicine, where she is creating a thematic web archive documenting the current presence of Internet resources concerning Autism Spectrum Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease, with a focus on patient and caregiver blogs.