Meet the NMRLS Staff

We are profiling the NMRLS staff over the next few Newsletter issues. With these, we hope to really introduce ourselves to all of you. Who were we before NMRLS? What do we do in the Region and how are we different from our colleagues at NOBLE and MVLC? And, do we have lives beyond NMRLS?

We begin the series with the Regional Administrator, Greg Pronevitz!

Greg Pronevitz has been the Regional Administrator of the Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System (NMRLS) since its first year (fy1998). NMRLS is one of the six regional library systems in Massachusetts . The six Regional Library Systems provide services to, and support resource sharing among nearly 1,800 public, academic, school and special libraries in Massachusetts. Greg, as Regional Administrator, works closely with NMRLS Executive Board by recommending policies and services, which are developed with input from committees, staff, and Board members. The Board's decisions are reflected in documents that Greg coordinates including the annual budget and Plan of Service, NMRLS Annual Report, and NMRLS' Strategic Plan. Greg coordinates NMRLS operations and staff in collaboration with Mary Behrle, Assistant Regional Administrator, and Susan Grabski, Operations Manager. NMRLS managers have regular contact and meet semimonthly to review services, planning, priorities, and activities. NMRLS staff meets monthly with a wide ranging agenda to address member needs. Greg welcomes direct contact from the membership - greg@nmrls.org or 888-326-7772 x15. Greg's direct member contact takes a number of forms. He contributes to the newsletter regularly, posts messages to NMRLS electronic discussion list and web site. He tries to meet all new public and academic library directors personally and to make site visits to other libraries to discuss issues of mutual interest and stay familiar with member needs and concerns. He is heavily involved in NMRLS' services such as delivery, facilitating long range planning, advocacy, and serving diverse communities Greg also handles vendor relations and contracting responsibilities. He has negotiated numerous agreements with NMRLS' vendors for delivery services, online databases, interlibrary loan centers, the regional reference center, and leasing office space. He has also been involved in the planning and implementation for a number of statewide and regional projects such as the Digital Commonwealth (www.digitalcommonwealth.org) a statewide portal to access digital assets of Massachusetts cultural institutions; MassCat (www.masscat.org) a statewide library catalog of holdings from school, medical, law, special and a few public libraries; the Massachusetts Library Association (www.masslib.org) (MLA) Legislative Committee which sponsors advocacy events including Library Legislative Day; and MLA's Public Relations Committee which coordinates the MLA Hall of Fame (http://www.masslib.org/halloffame/) to recognize library leaders in the state and the Public Relations Awards (http://www.masslib.org/PRAwards07/index.htm) to recognize the best PR efforts by libraries. Greg's professional activities have included committee work and leadership for the American Library Association, Nelinet, and the Essex National Heritage Commission (ENHC). He has made presentations at Nelinet, the Association of College and Research Libraries, New England Chapters, ENHC, American Library Association, and will speak at the joint MLTA/MFOL conference in October. Prior to his move to Massachusetts, Greg lived for 15 years in Columbus, Ohio. He held positions at Ohionet (an OCLC network), the Ohio State University, and at Chemical Abstracts Service. He began his professional library career as a cataloger for Slavic materials at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. Greg was awarded an MLS from the School of Library and Information Science at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY) where he spent two semesters as an exchange student at Moscow State University in the Soviet Union. During library school, Greg worked at the Albany Medical Center Libraries. He has an undergraduate degree in Russian Language and Literature from SUNY Albany. He grew up in Hicksville on Long Island, New York where his Dad raised him as a Yankee fan, so please forgive him for this if you have a different affiliation. He's a news junkie and likes to read non-fiction, especially military history and all things Russian. His hobbies are photography and birding.