Loretta Parham is CEO and Director of the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library, an independent academic library for the shared benefit of four HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities)-Morehouse College, Spelman College, the Interdenominational Theological Center and Clark Atlanta University. Prior positions include University Library Director at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, and Deputy Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was District Chief of 20 urban branch libraries for the Chicago Public Library (CPL), and held other administrative and public service positions at CPL and the City Colleges of Chicago. She was Vice President/President of OCLC Members Council from 2007-2009.

Ms. Parham currently holds a variety of leadership positions in professional organizations, including Director-At-Large on the Board of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and Vice Chair of the Board of Georgia Humanities Council. She is co-founder and past Chair of the HBCU Library Alliance. She is a member of the Wayne State University School of Library & Information Science Advisory Board, the Heritage Preservation/Saving Special Collections Advisory Committee, and the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum Task Force. Ms. Parham is also a faculty member for the EDUCAUSE Management Institute.

Ms. Parham earned a master's degree in Library Science from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor's degree in Communications from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.