Dr. Gary Shaffer serves as the Director of Library Services for the City of Palm Desert. Prior to serving the City of Palm Desert he served as Director of Library, Arts & Culture for the City of Glendale California. and for the University of Southern California as Assistant Dean of USC Libraries and headed the Library and Information Science program at USC’s Marshall School of Business and the Center for Library Leadership and Management. He taught at USC for seven years. Shaffer is also the former chief executive officer of the Tulsa City-County Library, a 24-location, award-winning public library system located in Northeastern Oklahoma. He has also worked for the Brooklyn, Los Angeles County, and Sacramento public libraries.
Shaffer is the author of the books Emotional Intelligence & Critical Thinking for Library Leaders and Creating the Sustainable Public Library: The Triple Bottom Line Approach. He also co-edited the book The Sustainable Library’s Cookbook with incoming American Library Association President Dr. Raymond Pun. He received his Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership from Simmons University in Boston. In addition to his doctorate, he holds masters’ degrees in library and information science (MLIS), professional writing (MPW), and intellectual property law (LL.M.). He has advocated on behalf of libraries and archives for copyright reform at the UNs’ World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.
Shaffer was twice-elected to the board of the Public Library Association and has also served as councilor-at-large to the American Library Association Council. He is the Immediate Past President of the California Library Association. He has also served on the executive board of the Southern California Library Cooperative. He currently serves Califa (a library consortium) as its treasurer. In 2006, he was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker: One of 50 people shaping the future of libraries. Prior to working in libraries, Shaffer supervised Fortune 500 accounts for various advertising agencies.