ALASKA'S EARLIEST RECORDS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 1996
Fairbanks, Alaska - Susan L. Grigg has been appointed head of the Alaska and Polar Regions Department and associate professor of library science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Rasmuson Library. The hundreds of thousands of books, newspapers, archives, manuscripts, oral histories, maps, films and photographs in the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections make it the single most important resource for research on Alaska's history and culture.
With more than 1.5 million book volumes and 20,000 serial and periodical titles, the Rasmuson Library is considered one of the Pacific Northwest's major libraries and has the world's largest collection outside of Russia of books relating to Alaska, the Circumpolar North and the South Pole. The materials are available to all Alaskans and to visitors from around the world.
C. Eugene West, who became acting Alaska and Polar Regions department head following David Hales' retirement last fall, has returned to his long-time position of Arctic bibliographer.
Grigg comes to Alaska with a wealth of experience in collecting historical sources and making them accessible to students, scholars and to the general public. Most recently she served as librarian and archivist of Strawbery Banke, a ten-acre living history museum in New Hampshire.
Earlier she was in charge of the Sophia Smith women's history archive at Smith College in Massachusetts, and the Immigration History Collection at the University of Minnesota. Grigg received her doctorate in American history from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in library science from Simmons College.
She has taught and written widely about history and archives, recently chaired the editorial board of the Society of American Archivists, and currently serves as an associate editor of the soon-to-be-published "American National Biography" series from Oxford University Press.
Grigg's husband, the Rev. Justin G. G. Kahn Sr., will join her in Fairbanks in the spring.
A nationwide search is continuing for a new Rasmuson Library director following the June 30 departure of former director Sharon West. West left UAF and is a senior manager at WLN Inc., a private firm providing computing services to libraries and other institutions throughout the U.S.
In the interim, Graduate School Dean Joseph Kan will be acting director of the state's largest library. He'll oversee the operation of many UAF library departments including archives, the division of computing and communications, general collections on computer software, compact disks and CD-ROM, and oversight of SLED, the Statewide Library Electronic Doorway.
Diane Ruess, head of the library's Instructional Media Production and Communication Technology Department, is the interim associate director of libraries.
CONTACT: Alaska and Polar Regions Director Susan
Grigg, (907) 474-6593, or Public Information Officer Debra Damron,
907-474-7581.
UAF News releases available electronically at: http:// www.uaf.edu/univrel/media
DPD/8-30-96/97-012