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Digital Library Innovator and now Science Fiction Author

Martin Halbert

Martin Halbert is a pioneering leader in digital preservation and research services with three decades of experience including serving as Dean of Libraries at two major research universities, principal investigator on the seminal National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database projects, and former science advisor for Public Access of the U.S. National Science Foundation. His experiences as an information scientist and librarian have informed his perspectives as an expert in preserving access to public records and scientific research outputs.

Drawing on this background in leading and fostering public access to critically important cultural and historical information, Martin Halbert has now written the first two books of the Sojourner Saga, a new series of upmarket science fiction novels that explore the ultimate price of information control and the fragility of civilization in a vast galactic setting of human, alien, and cybernetic societies. These novels, Helmsman (Book One), and Pilgrim (Book Two) will both be published on March 4, 2026 by Eposian Publishing, an innovative new press focusing on new approaches to narrative.

Selected Accomplishments

The central conflicts of the Sojourner Saga are drawn from Dr. Halbert's three decades of professional exploration of the highest level issues in information governance. The following selected accomplishments illustrate the types of real-world policy failures, ethical battles, and institutional neglect that inspired his novels distant future setting and its themes concerning the battle for control over information.