June 6, 2005 David M. Levy Named To Harissios Papamarkou Chair

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed David M. Levy to the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress.

Levy earned his doctorate in computer science from Stanford University in 1979 and a diploma in calligraphy and bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute in London in 1982. He is currently a professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. His research at the Library of Congress will focus on information and the quality of life.

Levy was formerly a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he focused on the nature of documents and the tools used to create them. He is a co-author of the National Research Council report “LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress” (2000) and “Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age” (2001). He was one of a number of guest speakers in the Library of Congress series “Managing Knowledge and Creativity in a Digital Context.” His lecture, titled “From the Fixed Page to Movable Electrons” discussed the shift of the experience of reading from the fixed page to movable electrons and how that has affected language. It can be viewed on the Library’s Web site (by clicking on webcasts from the Kluge Center) at www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc.

The Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology was established at the Library of Congress through a gift from Alexander Papamarkou (1930-1998), an investment banker who was generous in his support of the arts, education and medicine, in honor of his grandfather, a Greek educator. Holders of the Papamarkou Chair focus their research on the Library’s role in education and examine the impact of education and technology on individuals and society.

For more information about the Harissios Papamarkou Chair or any of the other fellowships and programs offered by the John W. Kluge Center, contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, DC 20540-4860; telephone (202) 707-3302, fax (202) 707-3595. Or, visit the Library’s Web site at www.loc.gov/kluge.