October Ivins first encountered SSP as a speaker in 1989.  SSP supported her through multiple career changes, and she chaired the Education Committee and then the Marketing Committee before serving two Board terms and was elected President for 2008/09. She chaired the Organizational Collaboration Committee and received the Distinguished Service Award in 2013.  She currently enjoys serving on the Mental Health Awareness Working Group.  She and her husband retired and moved to the Abruzzo region of Italy in winter 2017/18.  The Abruzzo boasts mountains and beaches two hours apart and was inhabited by Italic tribes and Greek colonists long before the Romans.

As an independent consultant for sixteen years, October assisted publishers and other content providers, associations, libraries, and consortia.  Projects typically included market research, pricing, and/or marketing strategy.  She began her career as an academic librarian at UNC and then LSU before completing PhD coursework in LIS (digital libraries and the information industry, and qualitative research methods) at UT Austin.  October was an executive at two Boston area publishing services startups before becoming a consultant.  She is a past president of NASIG and was an active member of ALCTS, a division of the American Library Association.