Chris Shaffer, MS, AHIP, FMLA | University Librarian and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Information Management

Chris Shaffer, MS, AHIP, FMLA, joined UCSF as university librarian, assistant vice chancellor for Academic Information Management, and adjunct professor at the Department of Medicine in August 2017.

He is a fellow of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP). He has served as president of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) and on the MLA Board of Directors.

As university librarian, Chris serves as a visible advocate for the UCSF Library, a champion for knowledge management, and a leader in transforming scholarly communication across the UC system and globally. He represents UCSF on the UC Council of University Librarians, which he chaired in 2023-2024. With Günter Waibel at the California Digital Library, he led the implementation of UC Library Search, which connects the libraries on all 10 University of California campuses through a unified discovery and borrowing system (the largest IT project in UC Libraries history).

An open science advocate, Chris has helped plan interprofessional education initiatives and worked with research offices and Clinical and Translational Science Award centers to develop new library services for researchers.

Previously, he was university librarian and associate professor at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) for nine years. His other past positions include assistant director for Technology and Outreach at the University of Iowa Hardin Library for the Health Sciences; technology coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region; and resident librarian at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chris holds a BA in Philosophy from Texas A&M University and an MS in Information Science from the University of North Texas.

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