Ying Zhang Begins Role as Associate University Librarian for Rutgers University–New Brunswick

Rutgers University Libraries welcomes Ying Zhang as the associate university librarian for Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She began serving in the role, which oversees the Rutgers–New Brunswick Libraries, on August 10.

Zhang comes to Rutgers from the University of Central Florida Libraries, where she has held roles focused on research impact, technical services, and collections and resource management. During her tenure at UCF, she exhibited data-informed, visionary leadership in planning, budgeting, and resource allocation.

Among her many accomplishments, she developed system-wide collection development policies grounded in content diversity, access equity, and sustainability. She led multiple high-impact system implementations, such as a new integrated library services platform and discovery interface, acquisitions and collection development marketplace platform, and course reading list management tool. She created a robust assessment framework that effectively demonstrated the value of university collections in advancing academic excellence and research impact. She also led efforts to experiment with AI-driven metadata, improve textbook affordability, and negotiate transformative agreements. A successful fundraiser, she secured nearly $3.9 million in competitive grants over a 10-year period, enabling the acquisition of critical electronic resources that advanced teaching and research.

Throughout her 30-year career in academic librarianship, she has cultivated expertise in instruction and research assistance, collection development, metadata management, resource sharing, systems integration, and digital scholarship.

Zhang has won multiple awards, including the Outstanding Library Leadership Award in Memory of Margaret Fung, the highest competitive award given by the Chinese American Librarians Association. She has presented at many international, regional, and national conferences and is bilingual in English and Chinese. She holds a bachelor of arts in religious studies from Nanjing University in Nanjing, China; a master of arts in religious studies and a master of library and information science from the University of South Florida in Tampa; and a master of information systems and master of business administration from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.