As Head of the Preservation Department at IU Libraries, Elise Calvi is responsible for administering a coordinated set of activities to protect, stabilize, and improve the condition of the collections in support of both present-day and future library users.

Elise developed an interest in systematic approaches to preservation while managing large-scale preservation and access grants in the Harvard Library, which led to publication of The Preservation Manager’s Guide to Cost Analysis. At IU she has used a collections-based approach to address preservation priorities, such as described in “GreenGlass for Preservation Selection.” She introduced minimally interventive treatments that expand the repertoire of the book conservation lab for treating older materials and those with artifactual value, as well as to support collection management initiatives.

Elise is a member of the Preservation Officers’ Group of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and coauthored "Best Practices for Assessing Acceptable Condition" for the BTAA Shared Print Repository. As a member of the IU Libraries’ Digital Preservation Policy Framework Task Force she coauthored the Digital Preservation Survey Report, which informed development of a digital preservation policy.

Elise served two terms on the editorial board of Library Resources & Technical Services, is a reviewer of grant applications for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is on the board of directors of the IU Book Lab.

Prior to joining the Libraries, Elise worked at Harvard, the University of Delaware, and the University of Maryland as a preservation librarian; conservator at the Indiana Historical Society; head librarian at the Walters Art Museum; reference/collection development librarian at Syracuse University; curator of the history of medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University; curator of photographs at the Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Houses in Hartford, CT; and conducted surveys, workshops, and grant writing at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.

Elise received her M.L.S. from the University of Rhode Island and her B.A. in Art History from the University of Connecticut.