Lisa O'Hara

Lisa O’Hara was appointed vice-provost (libraries) and university librarian at the University of Manitoba effective June 3, 2019. Since joining the University of Manitoba in 2002, O’Hara has held several leadership roles including head of technical services, head of discovery and delivery services, acting associate university librarian for collections and associate university librarian for research support services.

O’Hara holds the rank of librarian and has been instrumental in overseeing the work of several large-scale technology projects, including the first implementation of a cloud-based library system in Canada and the development of the libraries’ digital asset management system.

An experienced manager and administrator, she has also led the work at the University of Manitoba to establish a research support and digital strategies framework, a centralized user services unit across the seven University of Manitoba libraries and four satellite locations, and an internal reorganization to better support faculty and students’ research and teaching/learning. She is currently engaged in facilities planning and design for the libraries with a goal of creating a twenty-first century library environment providing spaces and technologies to support student success.

O’Hara has been an active participant on various university level committees including the Next Generation Web Experience Project Board, the Covid Recovery Steering Committee, the Senate Committee on Academic Computing and she chairs the University’s Copyright Advisory Committee and the Senate Committee on Libraries. Her current research focus is in the area of service support for Indigenous research and scholarship and on ways to transform libraries with an emphasis on technology.

She maintains strong professional and community ties, serving on the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Board of Directors, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Strengthening Capacity Committee (SCC) and chairing the CARL EDI working group, and serving on the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) Indigenous Knowledge Steering Committee. She also serves on the Board of L’Arche Winnipeg.

O’Hara holds an MLIS from the University of Toronto, an undergraduate degree from the University of Manitoba, and was a 2016-17 Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellow.