Jason Griffey

Jason Griffey (MSLS '04) is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). He works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed, and leads several ongoing projects such as NISO’s participation in the Coalition for Seamless Access.

Griffey is the founder and principal at Evenly Distributed, a technology consulting and creation firm for libraries, museums, education, and other non-profits. He is an Affiliate Researcher at metaLAB at Harvard and Affiliate and Former Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Prior to founding Evenly Distributed, he held academic library roles ranging from reference and instruction to head of IT for the library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Griffey has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.

In 2012, Griffey initiated an open-source project called LibraryBox, a portable digital file distribution tool designed to connect locations with limited internet connectivity with digital information. He received a Foundation Prototype grant from the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation in April 2014 to help further develop and expand the geographic distribution of LibraryBox. He was one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries grant in January 2015 to help launch the Measure the Future Project, an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces.

Griffey said earning his MSLS at SILS gave him the latitude to explore a wide range of subjects, while ensuring he developed a strong grasp of library science fundamentals.  

“The importance of a breadth of education is so key in the current library climate, as it allows librarians to be agile in their response to the changes in the profession,” he said. “A good understanding of the theory, a grounding in technology, and experience in one of the amazing libraries on campus, and I had a great baseline from which to grow the rest of my career.”

Photo credit: Cindi Blyberg