Colin Steele received an MA from Liverpool University and a Grad. Dip. Lib. from University College, London. At the Australian National University (ANU), he held the positions of University Librarian (1980-2002) and Director, Scholarly Information Strategies (2002-2003). he was later made an Emeritus Fellow at ANU. Steele's career also saw him employed as a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the
Canberra Times(1981-) and for
Sirius
(1993-1997). He was the Chair of the Australian National Word Festival from 1983 to 1987 and Convener of
the
Canberra Times
/ANU Literary Lunches from 1987.
He has also been a boardmember for a number international journals, including
The Electronic Library
and
The Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
In addition to his career as a librarian, Steele is the author/editor of a number of books, notably English Interpreters of the Iberian New World (1976) and Changes in Scholarly Communication Patterns
(1993) co-written with D. J. Mulvaney (1993). He has also had more
than 300 articles and reviews publsihed..