Shelby Sanett

Dr. Sanett works at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, MD, as the Lead Security Management and Program Analyst in the Security Management Division. She works in several areas, including the Continuity of Operations Program, policy development and various special projects. On the academic side, Dr. Sanett has taught adult learners for many years and most recently was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in New York, where she taught the Preservation and Introduction to Digital Preservation courses in the School of Information and Library Science.

Prior to joining NARA, Dr. Sanett was the Imaging and Preservation Service (IPS) Manager at Amigos Library Services in Dallas, Texas, where she developed and taught continuing education workshops in grant preparation, preservation-related training, disaster planning and emergency management to librarians and archivists in the Southwestern U.S., primarily Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. IPS serves as an advocate for preservation regionally and nationally.

While at Amigos, Dr. Sanett worked with Heritage Preservation to develop and offer the first Alliance for Response Forum in the United States. The success of the Forum led to the development of the State of Texas Alliance for Response Taskforce (START), where first responders, emergency management personnel and cultural heritage institutions came together to develop disaster mitigation, response and recovery strategies for Texas libraries, museums and archives.

While at Amigos and NARA, Dr. Sanett was a preservation policy investigator on the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) Project, an international collaborative project to develop strategies and processes for the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records. This experience led to her research interest in examining issues related to the programmatic aspects of digital preservation programs, primarily costs, staffing and policy. Dr. Sanett worked with the National Archives of Australia as the research subject of her dissertation and has been a speaker and guest lecturer on these topics internationally.

Dr. Sanett recently served as chair of the Preservation Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and she has been appointed to the Education Committee of SAA for 2012-2013. Dr. Sanett holds a PhD from the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University, Australia, an MLIS degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.