Bradley Schaffner, head of the Slavic division of Harvard University’s Widener Library, is among the five candidates for Kansas University’s dean of libraries.

Schaffner will give a public presentation at 3 p.m. Thursday in Alderson Auditorium at the Kansas Union.

Schaffner holds a bachelor’s degree from Minnesota’s Gustavus Adolphus College and a master’s degree from Indiana University. He joined Harvard in 2004 after 15 years as a librarian at KU and after work at Indiana.

The position is being vacated by Stella Bentley, who is retiring.