Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant recipient named

Contact: Denise Davis


Director


Office for Research and Statistics


312-280-4273

For Immediate Release


February 24, 2005

Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant recipient named

CHICAGO - Kristin Eschenfelder, a faculty member in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the winner of the 2005 American Library Association (ALA) Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant.

The 2005 grant will fund a project entitled "Investigating the Impact of Digital Rights Management Systems on the Users of Digital Works: A Pilot Study." This study is the first of two to examine the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) in academic and research libraries and the consequences of DRM use for users of digital materials. The pilot study will be two case studies at libraries that maintain large digital collections - an engineering and a health sciences library.

"The committee felt this proposal would yield valuable information about the prevalence and impact of DRM in academic libraries," said Baber Grant Jury Chair Mary Popp. "This is an area we know little about, and as libraries of all types move increasingly toward digital content delivery we need to understand the issues for users and providers of those resources."

The $3,000 grant supports innovative research that could lead to an improvement in library services to any specific group of people. Eric R. Baber, Newton, Kan., donated the award in honor of his father, who was library director at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University) for 27 years. Baber died in January 1991, leaving ALA an endowment to support the award in perpetuity.

Guidelines for the Baber Grant, including a list of previous winners, may be found by going to:
http://www.ala.org/ala/ors/orsawards/baberresearchgrant/babercarroll.htm.