The editorial board of Perspectives is pleased to announce that J. Arch Getty of the University of California at Riverside and Donald B. Simpson of the Center for Research Libraries will serve as cocontributing editors for the newsletter's Archives and Research column.

J. Arch Getty

J, Arch Getty will cover international archival issues for Perspectives. Getty, who received his Ph.D. from Boston College, is professor of history and chair of the department at UC Riverside. He specializes in Russian history and the history of the Soviet Communist Party. His books include The Great Purges Reconsidered (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985) and, with Roberta T. Manning, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993). In 1994 he edited the first published catalog to the former Central Party Archive of the Communist Party in Moscow. He is currently completing a documentary history of Stalinist repression in the 1930s.

Getty has been a senior fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and at the Russian Research Center at Harvard, as well as a senior visiting scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He was director of the Moscow Study Center of the University of California Education Abroad Program in 1993-94 and is currently codirector of the International Center for the Study of Russian and the Soviet Union.

Getty explains that in many parts of the world, collections and access to them are constantly changing. He believes that it would be a great service to Perspectives readers to have up-to-date information on such changes. He thus welcomes contributions to Perspectives from scholars who wish to write about their experiences in archives, libraries, and other research collections abroad. Prospective contributors to Perspectives can contact Getty at Dept. of History, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521. E-mail: arch.getty@ucr.edu.

Donald B. Simpson

Donald Simpson will cover domestic archival issues for Perspectives. He is president of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), a Chicago-based international cooperative for research libraries founded in 1949. CRL is familiar to many historians as a major research library containing more than 5 million volumes of rare library materials; CRL also facilitates the sharing of scarce resources among North American research libraries. Simpson has guided CRL's multifaceted programs and services since 1980. Over a 26-year career, he has held senior management positions in library cooperation at the state, regional, and national levels.

Simpson completed his graduate studies in public administration and library science at Ohio State University and Syracuse University. He focused in particular on the management of information systems. Simpson earned his undergraduate degree in English literature at Alfred University. He has published more than 30 articles on interlibrary cooperation and research library collections management as well as four editions of a directory of state library agencies. His professional experiences have included numerous consulting and speaking engagements, extensive service on boards and committees, representation of the United States as a delegate to a UNESCO world congress on libraries, and election as a division president of the American Library Association.

Simpson’s current professional interests include improving North American scholars' access to international materials, enhancing the use of research libraries via the Internet, and digitizing research library collections. He notes that the library and information world is changing very rapidly as a result of two important forces: the substantial transformation in the economics of research libraries and the wholesale adoption of new technologies affecting all aspects of library programs and services. This "brave new world" is one in which more information in more formats costs more to acquire, maintain, and deliver than ever before.

In addition to articles about the status of North American archival resources that support scholarship, Simpson seeks articles that will engage historians in discussions of the changes in economics and technology affecting both librarians and scholars. Simpson may be contacted at the Center for Research Libraries, 6050 S. Kenwood Ave., Chicago, IL 60637-2804. (773) 955-4545, ext. 335. Fax (773) 955-0862. E-mail: simpson@crlmail.uchicago.edu.