Colleagues,
I am a librarian at the University of Toronto Library conducting a study on decision-making in research libraries during the early years of the World Wide Web. As you know, these were years of unprecedented change in the library world, with new online services and collections being adopted by academic libraries at a very rapid pace. My project involves investigating how directors of academic libraries made decisions regarding these new services and collections.
Using in-depth, anonymized interviews of individuals who were directors of ARL libraries during this period, I seek to understand how and under what conditions decisions regarding online services were made. Shedding light on the complex dynamics faced by library directors in this critical historical period is useful for its own sake, but may also indicate patterns in library governance that continue into the present.
I am currently seeking participants for this study. The participants must have served as Director (or Chief Librarian) of an ARL Library at some time during the period from roughly 1995 to 2002.
In the resulting publication, participants will be anonymized, as will the institutions they serve. Interviews should take approximately one hour and participants will be compensated for out-of-pocket expenses.
Please forward this to anyone you think would make suitable participant for this study. Please also feel free to contact me directly if you can think of someone who might be open to the study, but whose contact information you do not have.
I can be contacted at: d.dagostino_at_utoronto.ca<mailto:d.dagostino_at_utoronto.ca>
Thank you!
Dan D’Agostino
University of Toronto Library
d.dagostino_at_utoronto.ca<mailto:d.dagostino_at_utoronto.ca>
Received on Wed Nov 30 2016 - 10:20:25 EST