Alumnus Jonathan Bengtson celebrated by the Royal Society of Canada

Exeter College alumnus Jonathan Bengtson (1992, MPhil Modern History) has recently been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) Academy of Arts and Humanities for his contribution to librarianship. The RSC Fellowship is Canada’s highest academic honour.

Jonathan has been a library director in the UK, US, and Canada for the past 25 years. He was the acting head librarian at Corpus Christi College and at The Queen’s College in Oxford before his move to North American libraries. Since 2012, he has been the University Librarian at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Jonathan’s work has had a profound impact on the profession and practice of librarianship—he has led advancements in open access to knowledge, pioneered digital initiatives, and built national publishing and preservation infrastructure. He established Canada’s first Associate University Librarian for Reconciliation and founded the peer-reviewed journal KULA: knowledge creation, dissemination, and preservation studies. He currently chairs the Canadian Coalition of Digital Heritage.

In 2021, Jonathan was awarded the Ron MacDonald Distinguished Service Award by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

Jonathan said about his work, “The library is no longer simply the repository of the products of research, but rather it is integrated into the full lifecycle of teaching, research, and learning at the university. As such, the library is uniquely positioned as a transdisciplinary hub that can accelerate new knowledge creation and help to address global challenges.”

Exeter College congratulates Jonathan on this outstanding achievement!