Ross Housewright

MIMS 2007
Research Analyst, Ithaka

Ross Housewright earned his Master’s of Information Management in 2007. An ideal reflection of both the new I School and our Library Science roots, Ross currently works at Ithaka, a non-profit in New York City which works to drive the innovative use of technology in higher education and libraries. We asked Ross to tell us about his work, his experience at the I School, and how he stays involved.

About My Work

Ithaka as a whole serves as a sort of non-profit incubator – we have three "startups," all serving the higher education/library field. We also have a Strategic Services division which does non-profit consulting. Finally, we have the Research Services group, where I work as an analyst. It’s a small group which focuses on research that benefits the higher education and library communities, generally working to address community-wide needs and help provide the policy basis for innovation. We’ve done a lot of work on library issues, focusing on things like the transition from print to electronic resources and the challenges of establishing a community framework for print preservation.

One of the projects I’ve worked on which has been interesting and received a lot of attention has been our faculty and librarian surveys. Ithaka has done regular large-scale surveys of faculty attitudes and behaviors related to libraries, electronic resources, etc. One of my major projects thus far has been to work on putting together a white paper which presents these materials to the community, as well as making the raw data available. I feel it’s a valuable service we’ve been able to provide the community from our unique position.

I’m also currently working on a project to understand how faculty members use primary source materials, both traditional print collections as well as digital collections, and to discover what support they receive or would like to receive. Our goal is to write a paper which will help librarians and other academic support specialists understand how to better support this increasingly popular pedagogical method.

My I School Experience and Staying In Touch

I very much enjoyed my time at the I School, and feel that it prepared me well. While at the I School, I focused largely on information policy and law (copyright, privacy, etc.), and I have found that the analytical skills I learned help me think through and articulate complex visions for change. In particular, the Information Policy & Law and Cyberlaw courses were very helpful. Similarly, I feel that Paul Duguid and Geoff Nunberg’s Quality of Information class, my work as an aide in their History of Information class, and working with Paul on my final project were very helpful in improving my ability to critically analyze technological change. More directly, the course on “After Google, What?” provided a great deal of insight into many of the current issues in the modern library.

Even though everyone I went to the I School with has since graduated, I still feel plugged into the community through reading and participating on the general discussion “noise” list through the alumni network. Also, it’s incredibly entertaining!