John H. Hagen is an independent consultant and owner of his consulting firm Renaissance Scholarly Communications, based in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Originally from Flint, Michigan, Hagen studied sociology at Michigan State University, where he launched his career at the MSU Libraries in 1987. Hagen’s extensive academic library background includes management the of Institutional Repository (IR) programs and coordination of the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) program at the West Virginia University (WVU) Libraries from 1989–2011. He was also Chair of the WVU ETD/IR Task Force, where he guided the development of program policies and procedures. In this capacity Hagen provided counsel on program implementation, scholarly communications and intellectual property issues at WVU and beyond. Hagen’s passion, dedication and leadership in national and international library networks provided the means for him to contribute his outreach and advocacy on open access in scholarly communications in the field.
Hagen presently serves on the Board of Directors for the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), an international non-profit consortium of hundreds of universities (since 1998). He serves as Chair of the standing Conferences Committee, Co-Chair for the ETD Awards Committee and he serves on a variety of other NDLTD committees. In 2002 he founded the Appalachian Regional ETD Consortium to promote ETD program implementation in the mountain states. In 2006 he served as Co-chair to organize the first U.S. Regional ETD Conference held in St. Louis, MO. In 2007 he received the Ohio ETD Leadership Award from the Ohio ETD Association (OETDA). In 2009 he served as Co-chair for the NDLTD’s ETD 2009 International Symposium on ETDs, held at the University of Pittsburgh and co-sponsored by WVU. In 2009 Hagen also received the NDLTD’s International ETD Leadership Award. In addition, he presently serves as a founding member on the Board of Directors for the United States ETD Association (USETDA), a non-profit organization which promotes the adoption of state-wide ETD associations and support networks for libraries and graduate schools nationwide.
Hagen’s contributions to the area of ETDs, IRs and open access advocacy in scholarly communications have been published and cited extensively in trade journal articles, interviews and conference proceedings. He has also presented papers at a variety of digital library and information technology conferences over the past 15 years. He is an evangelist for the open access and social equality movements.
