Leadership

Board of Governors

The John Carter Brown Library is managed by a Board of Governors whose responsibility is to provide strategic direction for the Library. In addition, the Board is responsible for assessing and hiring its Director and Librarian.

The current members of the Board of Governors are:

  • Joyce Chaplin
  • Chad Fischer
  • Paul R. S. Gebhard
  • Joseph Meisel (Brown University Librarian, ex officio)
  • Samuel M. Mencoff
  • Christina H. Paxson (Brown University President, ex officio)
  • Pamela Reeves
  • John Stuart, Chairman
  • William Twaddell
  • Leah VanWey (Brown University Dean of the Faculty, ex officio)
An image of Karin Wulf standing in the JCB's Reading Room Facing the camera and smiling

Director

Karin Wulf is the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian at the John Carter Brown Library and Professor of History at Brown University.  A historian of early America, what she refers to as “Vast Early America,” from 2013 to 2021 she was the Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and Professor of History at William & Mary. Wulf earned her PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University. She writes for public and academic audiences about early American history, the worlds of scholarship and scholarly publishing, and why footnotes can save democracy (really).  The author or editor of prize-winning scholarship on gender, family, and politics, her book Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in 18th Century British America was published by Oxford University Press in 2025. She serves on a variety of non-profit boards, including the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc. and the National Humanities Alliance, and is a co-founder of Women Also Know History.

A black and white photo of George Parker Winship sitting at a desk in a room filled wiht books and marble statuary.

Previous Librarians of the John Carter Brown Library

  • George Parker Winship 1895–1915
  • Champlin Burrage 1916
  • Worthington C. Ford 1917–1922 (acting)
  • Lawrence C. Wroth 1923–1957
  • Thomas R. Adams 1957–1983
  • Norman Fiering 1983–2006
  • Edward L. Widmer 2006–2012
  • Neil Safier 2013–2021