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PROFESSIONAL PROFILES:

Darcy Dapra

Strategic Partner Manager, Google, Inc.

Darcy Dapra Darcy Dapra would like to expel the image that all Google employees are intimidating techno-wizards, but we’re not biting. Even a quick conversation with Darcy—one of only a small group of Google Partner Managers in the United States who work with publishers, libraries, link resolvers, platform hosts, and other affiliates of the scholarly community—reveals that she is one of SSP’s most enviable members. And this is before we heard about her hip digs in a former liquor distillery in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill.

Working in the same division as Google Book Search, which also includes both Google Scholar and News Archive Search, since her November 2006 hire, Darcy is dedicated to the indexing and discoverability of non-book content, such as journals.

“Google’s mission is really aligned with that of academic publishing groups, in that we are focused on the efficient dissemination of information worldwide for research and discovery.” Darcy enjoys working with publishing partners to explore new revenue opportunities. Noting that, “it is an unfortunate perception that Google poses a challenge or threat” to traditional print publications, Darcy believes that Google applications and services can be power tools for publishers to reach readers and form online communities, enhancing the reach of scholarly communication.

Prior to her current post with Google and her entrée into the publishing arena, Darcy traveled to Korea on a Fulbright Grant in 1999 and lived with a Benedictine order of nuns in a small town of 300, teaching English and American culture. After later completing her Master’s in Art History, Darcy began an internship with the University of California Press that led to a number of subsequent roles within the Journals Division during the following five years. It was at UC Press that Darcy began her tenure with SSP, attending her first SSP seminar in 2004. Darcy is grateful that Google renewed their organizational membership, allowing her many rewarding opportunities to be involved with and connect to a community of industry peers.

Profiled April 2008