About CIDC

Staff

H. Thomas Hickerson, Director

Hickerson has been a prominent leader in the archival profession for twenty years and was honored by being named a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in 1987. He co-authored the first general review of archival automation in the U.S. (1976); authored the SAA basic manual on automated access (1981); served on the SAA National Information Systems Task Force (1977-1983), which designed and compiled the USMARC Format for Archival and Manuscripts Control (AMC); was the first chair of the Society’s Standards Board; chaired SAA’s Blue Ribbon Panel on the National Information Infrastructure (1995); and has served on the governing Council of the Society. He was also the first chair of the Research Libraries Group’s Task Force on Archives and Manuscripts (1983-1984), directing the work of that group during the initial implementation of the AMC Format within the Research Libraries Information Network, and served on the Executive Committee of the Association of College and Research Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Section. He was a 1993 recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship to investigate digital access to research collections on college and university campuses and currently directs or co-directs three campus-wide digital projects. He is also the Director of the Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

Peter B. Hirtle, Assistant Director

Prior to his arrival at Cornell, Hirtle worked at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), first for the Technology Research Staff (where he helped complete their last digital imaging report), and then as coordinator of electronic public access for the agency. Prior to his appointment at NARA, he served as curator of modern manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine. Hirtle as an MA in History and and MLS with a concentration in archival science. He is a frequent speaker at professional meetings, and has been active professionally. He has served on several of the units sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, and is currently a member of its governing Council. While serving as chair of the Society’s Committee on Archival Information Exchange, he oversaw the introduction of the EAD to the archival profession and also the formation of its EAD Working Group. He also was a member of the Commission on Preservation and Access/Research Library Group's Task Force on Digital Archiving. At present he is a member of the Research Library Group's Working Group on Digital Archiving.

Angela Moll, Digital Collections Manager

Moll holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Spanish Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. She has been one of the major contributors to BETA, an electronic bibliography of Old Spanish texts, directed by Charles Faulhaber. She has several years of experience with database technology and computing applied to literary research, as well as with SGML and the World Wide Web. Since she joined RMC, she has been working on several Web-based projects providing on-line access over the Internet to digitized archival textual and visual collections.

Rebecca W. Davidson, Visual Collections Cataloger

Rebecca Warren Davidson received her Ph.D. in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University in 1994. Prior to returning to graduate school, she had over ten years of experience in the design and use of library information storage and retrieval systems at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which she also received her M.S. in Library Science. She has published a number of scholarly papers and been a frequent speaker at conferences on her current research interests, which include the history of landscape painting and landscape architecture in the United States, and the art of the Italian Renaissance. Her interest in exploring new technologies for teaching these subjects led to her recent work on the UTOPIA project.

Oliver B. Habicht, System Support and Design Specialist

Oliver Bischoff Habicht graduated in 1997 from Cornell University with a degree in Applied Economics and Business Management. Before joining the CIDC in December 1997, Oliver developed his technical expertise working for seven years as a technical advisor in the university's central computing organization, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT). With a strong background in Internet multi-media technologies and production client-server systems, Oliver is now focused on supporting CIDC's current Windows NT environment and associated applications.

Noni Korf Vidal, Visual Collections Curator

Noni Korf Vidal ('84, '95 M.S.) promotes and enables the use of visual images in humanities education and research. She created several of the CIDC online image databases currently in use by students, professors, and the general public (Utopia, Fuertes, and Cornell's implementation of the MESL project). She is currently working to make a selection of the photographic holdings of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (where she is the Curator for Visual and Electronic Collections) available online.

Robert Rieger, Educational Projects Manager

Robert Rieger works as coordinator of the IMG. He helps guide the activities and research, including proposal preparation, research design, data collection, analysis and reporting. He also assists with teaching and planning. Prior to joining the IMG, Rieger directed research projects at the Office of Communication Strategies, Cornell University. Rieger has a Masters degree in Communication from Cornell University. He has published articles in the fields of communication experimental methods, university marketing, and children's media literacy. He recently completed two television documentaries: one on Cornell University's Nobel Physicist Dr. Hans Bethe, and another on the tragic environmental conditions found in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia.