Abby Smith Rumsey is a historian and consulting analyst with special interest in the creation, preservation, and use of the cultural record in a variety of media; the impact of digital information technologies on cultural heritage institutions; and the evolving role of information as a public good. She is director of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia. She works with the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in development of its national strategy to identify, collect, and preserve digital content of long-term value. And she recently served as a member of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access and was the senior writer and editor for the task force’s final report. She has served as an advisor to the ACLS Commission on the Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Previously she worked as director of programs at the Council on Library and Information Resources in Washington, DC; and at the Library of Congress managing programs relating to preservation of and access to cultural heritage collections.

She holds a doctoral degree in Russian history from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities. She has published widely on cultural heritage, preservation, and scholarship in the digital age.