Professional Biography

Keith Curry Lance is a consultant who works with libraries and related organizations as a researcher, statistician, public speaker, proposal writer, and focus grooup interviewer.

His current primary affiliation is Research Consultant to the School of Information at San Jose State University. In that position, he is continuing the work he began as Principal Investigator of the 2020-23 IMLS-funded study, The School Librarian Investigation–Decline or Evolution? (SLIDE). 

He was the founding Director of the Library Research Service at the Colorado State Library in 1987.  Since leaving that position in 2007, he has focused on consulting both independently and with the RSL Research Group, based in Louisville, Colorado.

He is best known in the school library community as the principal investigator of the most prolific research team studying the impact of school libraries and librarians on academic achievement and student learning.

He is best known in the public library community as the creator of the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service and its Star Library ratings (2009-22) as well as a long-time state and national leader in the development and use of public library statistics (1986-2022).

Over the past four decades, he has chaired and served on research and statistics committees of the American Library Association and several of its divisions as well as national entities, including Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Center for Education Statistics, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and National Information Standards Organization. He has also served on the editorial boards of School Library Research and Teacher Librarian and reviewed manuscripts for several other peer-reviewed library publications.

According to Google Scholar, his publications have been cited more than 4,000 times since 1997, more than 800 times since 2020. Since 1989, he has spoken at more than 250 library events in all but two U.S. states (many more than once) as well as in Australia, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.  In 2002, he was a featured speaker at the White House Conference on School Libraries, an event hosted by First Lady Laura Bush in the East Room of the White House.

In 2019, he received the Illinois Association of School Library Educators’ Crystal Honor Award; in 2013, AASL’s Distinguished Service Award; in 2007, the Colorado Association of Libraries’ Career Achievement Award; and in 2006, ASCLA’s Leadership Achievement Award.