Gail McMillan, director of scholarly communications and professor of University Libraries at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the title of professor emerita by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The emerita title may be conferred on retired professors, associate professors, and administrative officers who are specially recommended to the board by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands in recognition of exemplary service to the university. Nominated individuals who are approved by the board receive a copy of the resolution and a certificate of appreciation.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1982, McMillan made significant contributions to electronic theses and dissertations through her work directing the software development on a project that advanced the university as an international leader in electronic theses and dissertations. Through the project, Virginia Tech because the first institution to require open access to electronic theses and dissertations.

She also made significant contributions to open repositories by directing the team that established Virginia Tech’s open access institutional repository, VTechWorks, and through her involvement in sponsored research focused on the curation and preservation of institutional repository content.

In addition, McMillan advanced scholarly communications through her management of the Open Access Subvention Fund, her work in digital libraries and archives focusing on open access journal publishing, and her service and scholarship focusing on electronic theses and dissertations, digital curation and preservation, institutional repositories, open access policies, library subvention funds, and inclusion and diversity in libraries.

Throughout her career, McMillan authored or co-authored more than 58 journal articles; more than 120 international, national, and local presentations; and more than 12 poster sessions. She has participated in more than 13 sponsored research projects, served as peer reviewer for eight journals and open educational resources, served on the editorial board of six journals, and served as a consultant on more than 15 projects.

McMillan has been active in several professional associations, societies, and cooperatives, including as a founding member and member of the board of directors of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, a founding member of the MetaArchive Cooperative, and as a member of the American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, Digital Library Federation, International Archive of Women in Architecture, Library Publishing Coalition, National Digital Stewardship Alliance, OCLC, Open Repositories, Southeastern Universities Research Association, VIVA: Virtual Library of Virginia, and Society for Scholarly Publishing.

In her 40 years at Virginia Tech, McMillan has served the university community through her work in the University Libraries’ Collections and Technical Services department as a cataloger, project coordinator, department head, and team leader; through her work as department head of Special Collections; and as department director of Digital Library and Archives, Digital Research and Scholarship Services, and Scholarly Communication.

McMillan received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California Riverside and a master’s degree and Master of Library Science from the University of Maryland.

Related stories

Free open access publishing opens doors for Virginia Tech research

Share this story