March 30, 2011
Michigans library dean to speak on scholarship in a digital age
Paul Courant
Paul N. Courant, University of Michigan Dean of Libraries, will give a public presentation, Radical Change in Conservative Institutions: Universities, Libraries and Scholarship in the Digital Age, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 4, in 220 Odegaard. The talk is free and no pre-registration is required.
Courant is the dean of libraries at the University of Michigan. He is also Harold T. Shapiro collegiate professor of public policy, Arthur F. Thurnau professor of economics, professor of information, and faculty associate in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. From 2002-2005 he served as provost and executive vice-president for academic affairs, the chief academic officer and the chief budget officer of the university. He has also served as the associate provost for academic and budgetary affairs, chair of the Department of Economics and director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies (which is now the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy).
Courant has authored half a dozen books, and more than 70 papers covering a broad range of topics in economics and public policy, including tax policy, state and local economic development, gender differences in pay, housing and public health, relationships between economic growth and environmental policy, and university budgeting systems.
More recently, he is studying the economics of universities, the economics of libraries and archives, and the changes in the system of scholarly communication that derive from new information technologies. He has been instrumental in the success of the Google Books Library Project and HathiTrust, a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.
Courant holds a BA in History from Swarthmore College; an MA in Economics from Princeton University; and a doctorate in Economics from Princeton University. The talk is co-sponsored by University Libraries, Office of the Provost, and the Faculty Council on University Libraries, with support from the Kenneth S. Allen Endowed Library Fund.
Read Courants blog.
