Associate University Librarian for Discovery & Content Stewardship

Yale University has appointed Ben Armintor to the newly-created position of Associate University Librarian for Discovery and Content Stewardship. He will assume his role on September 21, 2026.

Armintor will join Yale after nearly twenty years at Columbia University Libraries, where he most recently served as Director of Digital Libraries and Scholarly Technologies, overseeing systems and services that support scholarship across the university–including discovery platforms, digital collections, scholarly websites, institutional repositories, and research applications. At Columbia, Armintor has been at the forefront of developing innovative metadata strategies that enhance discovery across the libraries’ collections. Collaborating with the metadata services team, he helped advance semantic search capabilities for archival and electronic scholarly resources, enabling more meaningful connections between researchers and library collections. He also led initiatives to improve e-book discovery and enhanced the discoverability of Columbia faculty’s scholarship and digital special collections through the application of open data and the principles of open scholarship, positioning metadata as a strategic tool for improving access, interoperability, and the overall research experience. 

Beyond Columbia, Armintor has helped shape many of the open-source technologies and collaborative initiatives that underpin research libraries worldwide, serving as a leader and contributor to projects including Blacklight, Samvera, Fedora, and Mirador. Through leadership in organizations such as the Digital Library Federation and Code4Lib, he has helped advance national conversations about discovery, digital stewardship, and the future of scholarly infrastructure. 

Armintor holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in social anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. His master’s research explored questions of heritage, tourism, and cultural identity, perspectives that continue to inform his thoughtful, human-centered approach to leadership, organizational change, and the stewardship of cultural heritage.

Anita Tien led this search with Arianna Williams, supported by Christina Errico.