1997 CAUSE ELITE Award

Paul Evan Peters:A Tribute

Paul Evan Peters was a remarkable visionary and coalition builder in higher education and the scholarly communication world. With warmth, humor, and humanity of vision, he energized and provided new insights and direction for both the technology expert and the neophyte to the world of networked information.

Before his untimely death in November 1996, Peters was the founding director of the Coalition for Networked Information, formed in 1990 by CAUSE, Educom, and the Association of Research Libraries to promote the creation and use of networked information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity. CNI was the ideal vehicle for its leader's vision of information transforming the world, and he brought to it informed insights, exuberant direction, eloquent sharing of his enthusiasm, and awareness of the needs of its varied constituencies of librarians, technologists, publishers, and the non-print world. His energy and influence were largely responsible for stimulating similar efforts in Australia and England.

At the Columbia University Libraries during the 1980s, Peters led the project to convert the 230-year-old card catalog into Columbia University Libraries Online, bringing together diverse groups in that large, bureaucratic system, convincing reluctant staff to enter the new world, and finding ingenious ways to make technical concepts and language accessible to faculty and staff. Curator of the New York Public Library Centennial exhibit, "The Global Library," which examined the digital revolution in the context of the 5,000-year history of communications, Peters shaped the development of the popular Web interface to the exhibition.

Among many professional leadership roles, he chaired the board of directors of the National Information Standards Organization and was an elected councilor of the American Library Association. He was instrumental in the development of the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). As president of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the ALA, his presidential program focused on speculative and science fiction, reflecting the lively interest that had led him to bring together the founders of LITA's Imagineering Interest Group. In June 1997 ALA's Library and Information Technology Association awarded him the LITA/Gaylord Award for Achievement in Library and Information Technology.

In a talk he gave in 1994, Paul Peters characterized Internet pioneers as "Web weavers and dancers at the dawn of the Meso-Electronic Period." He himself was one of those rare individuals able to translate the vision into the dynamic fabric of technical, social, and political reality.

As part of this award, $5,000 has been contributed to the Paul Evan Peters Scholarship fund being administered by the Coalition for Networked Information. For information about this fund or to make a contribution, contact CNI at info@cni.org, 202-296-5098.