Kathy Wisser joined the Simmons SLIS faculty in the fall of 2009. She earned her MSLS and Ph.D. at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received a MA in American history from the University of New Hampshire and a BA from Bates College.

Wisser’s research interests include metadata, archival description, classification and the history of libraries. In her dissertation, she explored the warrant of 19th century classification systems created and used by social libraries in the United States. A comparative analysis, this research investigated the underlying discourse of the organization of knowledge as expressed through classification systems.

While in North Carolina, Wisser spent five years as the metadata coordinator for NC ECHO, a statewide program that encourages and supports use of appropriate metadata by member institutions to ensure online access to cultural heritage information facilitation, workshop instruction and individual institutional consultation. Prior to that, she spent two years as a libraries fellow in the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries cataloging and special collections departments.

For the past eleven years, Wisser has been engaged in the standards formation process for Encoded Archival Context – Corporate bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF). She served as the tag library editor for EAC Beta in 2004 and was appointed Chair of the EAC Working Group by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) to take the standard from Beta to full version in 2006. EAC-CPF was released in March 2010 and fully adopted by SAA in January 2011. In 2011, she received a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to research the impact of relationship structures on archival description made possible by EAC-CPF. Additionally, she was a co-principal investigator for the National Archival Authorities Cooperative planning grant through IMLS, which included a scholarship program for workshops on EAC-CPF that she taught nationally through SAA.

She has published in several venues and served as special editor to issues of Journal of Library Metadata and Journal of Archival Organization. She will be the editor of the Journal of Archival Organization beginning in January 2016.