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As president of the American Historical Association, I started a programme to make dissertations into e-books in 1999. Before I knew it, I was involved in other electronic projects. Harvard invited me to become director of the libraries in 2007.

In the late 1990s, I left the teaching field to write biographies and histories for young adults.

First, I was a fact checker for Zagat and then I was an editorial assistant for HarperCollins publishing house.

My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

My work has taken me from historical research to involvement in electronic publishing ventures to the directorship of the Harvard University Libraries.

I've followed Brenda Bowen as she's moved from Henry Holt to Scholastic to Simon and Schuster to Hyperion and to HarperCollins. I have complete confidence that Brenda always knows the right questions to ask. I'm not sure another editor would be able to do that.

My road to publishing actually came through a colleague who connected me to my agent, and the faculty at Cornell was very supportive.

I discovered Deborah Ellis's books in the school library after my head teacher encouraged me to go beyond the school curriculum and look for books I might enjoy.

In law school, I earned the respect of professors and served on the editorial board of 'The Yale Law Journal.'