James Lonergan joined the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) as Director in June 2017. Previously he was a Deputy State Librarian at the New Jersey State Library and held positions as a Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Museum and Library Services; as Associate Director at the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Clearinghouse on Urban Education at Teachers College, Columbia University; and as the MBLC’s State Aid and Planning and Research Specialist. His first job in the library field was as an Adult/Reference Librarian and later an Assistant Branch Manager at the New York Public Library. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he earned an M.P.A. from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and an M.S. from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.