For many years, Michael Ridley was the Chief Librarian and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the University of Guelph where he is now Librarian Emeritus. Ridley recently completed a PhD at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University ("Folk Theories, Recommender Systems, and Human Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI)". Prior to his appointment at Guelph, he held positions at the University of Waterloo (Associate University Librarian) and McMaster University (Head of Systems and Technical Services, Health Sciences Library). His professional career as a librarian began where it ended. Ridley's first appointment as an academic librarian was at Guelph where he served as a Reference Librarian, Catalogue Librarian, and Library Systems Analyst.
