General

Dr. Richard Saunders is an academic librarian and former Dean of Library Services at Southern

Utah University. A graduate of Utah State University, he holds a library degree from Brigham

Young University and a PhD from the University of Memphis with an emphasis on the social

history of recent America, and is professionally accredited by the Academy of Certified

Archivists. His professional work experience includes service at the Utah State Historical

Society, Montana State University, in the production side of commercial publishing, and at the

University of Tennessee at Martin. Though a professional librarian, he has conducted historical

research across the US and published widely, on Yellowstone literature, early Utah printing,

Montana history, the work of historian Dale L. Morgan, Tennessee novelist Harry Kroll, and the

civil rights movement in the rural South during the 1950s and 60s.

History

Dr. Richard Saunders is an academic librarian and former Dean of Library Services at Southern

Utah University. A graduate of Utah State University, he holds graduate degrees in history from

USU and the University of Memphis. His career in history has centered on preserving the

sources of history as a Certified Archivist and special collections librarian, but he has also

researched, written, and published widely in historical topics including Yellowstone, the

American West, Mormons, American popular literature, and the US civil rights movement. His

biography of Utah native and historian of western America Dale L. Morgan was named a Finalist

in 2024 for the Evans Biography Prize. He is currently at work on a study of post-war social and

economic change in the rural South, focusing on several counties in West Tennessee.

Library

Dr. Richard Saunders is the former Dean of Library Services at Southern Utah University and

has been an archivist and librarian since the days of typewriters and ARPAnet. He holds a

library degree from Brigham Young University, one of the library-school casualties of the 1990s,

a PhD in History from the University of Memphis, and has been a member of the Academy of

Certified Archivists since 1992. Since 1988 he has worked as an archivist or librarian at the

Utah State Historical Society, Montana State University, University of Tennessee at Martin, and

Southern Utah University where he was dean from 2014 to 2018. Dr. Saunders currently serves

as the editor of RBM, ACRL’s journal of special collections librarianship.

Printing

Dr. Richard Saunders, academic librarian and former Dean of Library Services at Southern Utah

University, has been a student of printing, type, and publishing for over two decades. Informed

by activity as an amateur handset printer and craft bookbinder, his scope of interest includes

industrial-scale papermaking, typography, printing, and both historical and descriptive

bibliography. He worked professionally in the production side of commercial publishing in the

1990s during the industry’s transition from filmsetting to direct-to-plate technology. Dr.

Saunders has guest-lectured to college students and the public in classes and at symposia at

institutions including Brigham Young University and the University of Tennessee. His

professional output includes Printing in Deseret: Mormons, Politics, Economics, and Utah’s

Incunabula, 1849–1851 (Univ. of Utah Press, 2000), and Reams in the Desert: Papermaking in

Utah, 1849–1893 (Legacy Press, 2021).

These comments made as part of the podcast reflect the views of the episode participants only and should not be construed as official university statements.