Diane Nester Kresh

View Webcast (Welcoming Remarks) (11 minutes - requires RealPlayer to view)

Thursday, June 19, 2003
1:00 pm - 1:15 pm

Welcoming Remarks

Diane Nester Kresh is Director for Public Service Collections at the Library of Congress. She directs a staff responsible for fifteen of the Library's reading rooms, including the historic Main Reading Room, and for custody and security of more than 113 million items in the Library's general and special collections. Kresh founded the Collaborative Digital Reference Service, a project to build a global, Web-based reference service among libraries and research institutions, which has now become QuestionPoint, a service codeveloped by the Library of Congress and OCLC. For her role in launching the Collaborative Digital Reference Service, Kresh received a 2001 Federal 100 award given by Federal Computer Week to top executives in government, industry, and academia who have made the greatest impact on the government information systems community. It honors those who have "made a difference in the way organizations develop, acquire, and manage information technology." Kresh is a frequent speaker at professional meetings and conferences and is the author of several articles on digital reference services. She holds a bachelor's degree in theater and a master's degree in library science from the Catholic University of America, and she has been a staunch supporter of her staff's efforts to promote the Library's women's history collections.