Jane Kinney Meyers

President & Founder

Jane’s experience in library development and implementation spans four decades. She has organized libraries for USAID’s Office of Women in Development, Sahel Development Program, Asia Bureau and other offices to coordinate them with the USAID Library. At the World Bank, in the early 1980s, she established and marketed library and information services in the Bank’s central agricultural advisory department. In the mid- to late-1980s, under a World Bank-financed project in Malawi, Jane managed the establishment of the government’s network of agricultural research libraries and was cited in Science magazine for her innovation in bringing the first CD-ROM to Africa. From the early 1990s through 2001, she served as a consultant to the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, the FAO, the U.S. National Agricultural Library, the USIA’s MLK Jr. Library and Information Resource Center in Zambia, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Programs. She has given invited presentations at conferences of the ALA, SLA, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Library Associations, library schools at the University of Alabama, University of South Carolina, University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University, Simmons College, the D-Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Brooklyn Public Library and the Library of Congress.

Jane received her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Arizona and her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Beta Phi Mu International Library and Information Studies Honor Society

Jane has has been widely recognized for her professional achievements. In 2007, she was awarded the Dow Jones Factiva Leadership Award by the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and, in 2008, was recognized by the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies as its Distinguished Alumna of the year. In 2012, the American Library Association (ALA) awarded Jane the John Ames Humphrey/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship, its highest honor in international librarianship. The U.K. Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals recognized her with its 2010 International Award and, in 2013, the Washington, DC Library Association recognized her outstanding achievements in the development or improvement of library and information services with its Rand Spofford President’s Award. Jane was invited to speak at a plenary session of the 2020 International Day of Education celebration at UNESCO in Paris, to explain how education and learning can help foster peace.