Jesse Johnston is a Clinical Assistant Professor who joined UMSI in 2022. Johnston has been active in the cultural heritage field as an administrator, librarian, archivist, and civil servant. As senior librarian for digital content at the Library of Congress, he managed policy development and training initiatives at the Library's Digital Collections Management unit established in 2018. Prior to that, he served as a senior program officer for preservation and access at the National Endowment for the Humanities, where coordinated a program portfolio that awarded $1.5 million through competitive grants annually. He also created and coordinated the NEH's first (and only) community archiving program, Common Heritage. From 2012 to 2013, he was an archivist at the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Smithsonian Center for Cultural Heritage. He has also been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland iSchool, George Mason University, and Bowling Green State University.

Johnston currently conducts research on federal policy for digital records, metadata and API access to collections, and user practices in sound and video collections. He frequently consults with universities, libraries, and other cultural heritage organizations regarding grant proposal development, research enhancement, and program assessment.

Pronouns

he/him

Areas of interest

Sound and music archives
Use practices in finding and using information resources
Recordkeeping policies and systems
Digital collections

Honors & Awards

Independent Study and Research Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities (2016)
Kohn Doctoral Fellowship, Masaryk University (2006)
Fulbright Research Grant (Czech Republic), International Institute for Education/Fulbright (2005-2006)

Education

Ph.D., Musicology, University of Michigan (2008)
M.S.I., Archives & Records Management, University of Michigan School of Information (2012)
Certificate in Czech Language and Literature, Masaryk University (2003)