Interview with Paul Gherman, November 18, 2016

Interview Summary

Paul Gherman was the university librarian at Virginia Tech from 1985-1992 and at Vanderbilt University from 1996-2008. In this interview, he talks about how he became interested in librarianship as a career due to a lack of jobs in his original field of study. He talks about his career path, including his time in the Peace Corps, at Wayne State University, University of Michigan, Virginia State, Iowa State, and Penn State. He talks about why he was interested in the administrative side of librarianship. Gherman talks about his last year at Virginia Tech when he worked on a project to bring Internet into homes in an experiment called Blacksburg Electronic Village. He talks about his work at both Kenyon College and Vanderbilt University to create resource sharing programs.

Gherman talks about the atmosphere at ASERL meetings when he first joined, and discusses how that changed as the membership changed. He talks about the relationships he formed with other library directors through ASERL. Gherman talks about the value of participating in consortial groups like ASERL. He talks about the changes in technology during his career, and discusses his outlook for the future of libraries and technology.

Interview Keyword

Wayne State University University of Michigan Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) Iowa State Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) Interlibrary loan (ILL) Association of Research Libraries (ARL)

Interview LC Subject

Library cooperation Library administrators Library science Academic librarians Academic libraries Consortia Joint-use libraries Technological innovations Library resources

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.