Steve Coffman
Vice President for Business Development

As LSSI's Vice President for Business Development Steve oversees the design of new library products and services. His current focus is developing new library funding and operating models. Steve also pioneered the virtual reference 'movement' and, with LSSI, helped thousands of libraries around the world move their reference services to the Web. Steve wrote Going Live! Starting and Running a Virtual Reference Service, available from ALA Editions.

Prior to joining the LSSI team, Steve spent 15 years at the County of Los Angeles Public Library where he was the Director of FYI, the County's Business Research Service.

Steve regularly contributes articles to library journals, including: "What If You Ran Your Library Like a Bookstore?," "Building Earth's Largest Library," "Reference As Others Do It," "And Now a Word from Our Sponsor," "The Librarian and Mr. Jeeves," "Distance Education and Virtual Reference: Where Are We Headed," "Resolved: Reference Librarians Are Toast," "What's Wrong with Collaborative Digital Reference," "Changing Public Library Funding," (May 2003 issue of American City and County) and "Saving Ourselves: Plural Funding for Public Libraries" (February 2004 issue of American Libraries).

Steve has his MLS from UCLA.