UAFS names new library director

Robert W. Frizzell of Maryville, Mo., who has 20 years of experience as a library director, is the new director of library services at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

Frizzell began his UAFS position on Sept. 1.

Frizzell was most recently director of libraries at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, performing all duties associated with administering the library of a regional state university. He held that position for nine years until retirement in March 2010. He also served as director of Bailey Library at Hendrix College from August 1989 until Sept. 2001. He left Hendrix to assume the role at Northwest Missouri State.

Frizzell was social science librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill., from August 1975 until June 1989 and worked in the History Department at the University of Illinois from September 1972 until May 1974. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Frizzell’s experience includes a strong record of statewide cooperation. He was one of the founders in Arkansas of the ARKLink consortium of academic libraries. In Missouri he was a member for five years and chair for one year of the executive committee of MOBIUS, the Missouri consortium that operates a program that collectively provides the most advanced library services, especially electronic services, to its member libraries.
 
Frizzell said he sees the most important evaluative task in the academic library is the same as it has been for the last two decades — determining the most effective current combination of electronic and print offerings.

He has had articles published in numerous journals and made presentations and presented scholarly papers in several states. Frizzell received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has a Master of Arts degree in European History and a Master of Science degree in Library Sciences, both from the University of Illinois-Urbana.