The winner of the 2016 Donald G. Davis Article Award is Steven Witt for ‘Agents of Change: The Rise of International Librarianship and the Age of Globalization’ in Library Trends vol. 62, no. 3 (2014) pp. 504-518. This award is presented biennially by the American Library Association’s Library History Round Table to recognize the best published article written in English in the field of United States and Canadian library history. While the primary focus of this article was the history of the American Library Association’s Paris Library School during the 1920s, the author placed this topic within the larger context of international librarianship and as a pre-cursor to present-day globalization. Witt’s methodology was grounded within an historical case study that was clearly laid-out. The author’s argument was clearly articulated and the objectives of his article were clearly defined and achieved. Witt did an excellent job of identifying prior contributors and theorists to the field of international librarianship and globalization and sometimes challenged their works with his own. The committee found Witt’s article to be the strongest of those submitted and worthy of receiving the Donald G. Davis Award.
Donald G. Davis Award Committee:
Andrew Huse, Chair
Dr. Sterling J. Coleman, Jr.
Tanya Ducker Finchum
David M. Hovde