What Happened?
Ipswich, MA-based EBSCO Promoted Michael Gorrell as Chief Information Officer
About the Company
EBSCO Information Services is the leading provider of information resources for institutions including discovery, journal and e-package services, research databases, e-books, digital archives, healthcare resources, corporate resources, readers advisory and more. EBSCO serves the research needs of academic institutions, schools and public libraries plus hospitals and medical institutions, corporations and government agencies. We are a stable, growing company and currently hiring across several business units.
About the Person
Michael Gorrell is the Chief Information Officer for EBSCO Industries in addition to being the Executive Vice President of Technology for EBSCO Information Services. He is responsible for managing all technology across EBSCO Industries, including the large operation for EBSCO Information Services. He joined EBSCO in August 1994, coming from the high tech industry, specifically hired to help usher in the ambitious new service called EBSCOhost. Michael has been responsible for building a high performance system that meets the highest industry standards for performance and availability. Mr. Gorrell has been instrumental in making usability testing central to the product design of the EBSCOhost platform, overseeing an industry-leading end-user testing program that has yielded tremendous feedback and enhancements to EBSCO’s interfaces. In addition, under his direction, EBSCO has become the industry leader in website accessibility for users with various physical and visual disabilities. Further, Michael has led EBSCO’s involvement in Internet2’s Shibboleth project since 2002. He has also been a driving force behind EBSCO Discovery Service technical developments and directed the EBSCO Discovery Service beta program through to its successful conclusion in December 2009. Following EBSCO’s acquisition of NetLibrary, the technology teams were charged with the mission of integrating e-books into the EBSCOhost platform and Mr. Gorrell’s direct involvement helped allow this to be accomplished within one year, including new functionality that had never before been available for e-books. Michael has lectured at universities, including the Eppes Lecture at the Florida State University Information Use Management and Policy Institute, and has spoken at many conferences, including The Charleston Conference, PLA (Public Library Association), The NISO Forum on Library Statistics and Performance Measures, etc. He has been published in library publications including Information Standards Quarterly and Against the Grain, and has had interviews published in Charleston Advisor, Booklist and Network World.
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