Libraries, History, and Rise of the Mavericks

This week, Dr. Paul "PJ" Springer is here to help me introduce my book to all of you, so the tables have turned and I'm a guest on my own show!

Weird, I know. Cue the third-person bio.

As a military historian, Philip Shackelford brings a unique focus on organizational culture and development to the history of communications intelligence, national security, and the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War. His book, Rise of the Mavericks: The U.S. Air Force Security Service and the Cold War, explores the rise of the U.S. Air Force Security Service, its Cold War history, and the relationships the command developed with other military and government agencies—the first work of academic scholarship to focus exclusively on this command. Philip has shared this research during multiple annual conferences of the Society for Military History and in other venues, such as the North American Society for Intelligence History annual conference and the faculty forum of the Air Command and Staff College. Philip is also currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the newsletter for the North American Society for Intelligence History.

Philip currently serves as the Library Director at South Arkansas Community College. He is a past president of the Arkansas Library Association, and serves the Arkansas library community in a variety of other capacities, including a recent term as Secretary of ARKLink (a statewide consortium of academic libraries) and as an Associate Editor for the Arkansas Libraries journal.

In 2019 Philip was recognized as an Emerging Leader by the American Library Association, and in 2020 completed a Certificate in OER Librarianship through the Open Education Network. Philip’s masters in History and masters in Library and Information Science are both from Kent State University.

Enjoy!