A Provost's Title for the Library Director

Chris Bourg, who has directed the MIT Libraries since 2015, has been named vice provost and Barbara K. Ostrom (1978) Director of the Libraries, MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan announced. Chandrakasan's gloss on the new title is the interesting part: "vice provost," he said, "signals the enduring importance of the MIT Libraries in the digital age."

It is a small administrative change carrying a claim about priority — that a library belongs among an institution's senior concerns rather than off to one side as a service. Titles don't pay for anything. They only say what an institution thinks matters.