Recently, the UW Library and the Faculty of Arts jointly received a grant worth $50,000 from the J. W. Graham Information Technology Trust Fund. This grant will help fund a cross-disciplinary research project that aims to understand the process and development of technology transfer. Also researched will be how spin-off companies effect the UW community, the Waterloo Region, plus their impact on other universities world-wide.
Under the administration of the Special Collections Librarian, Susan Mavor, and the direction of University Historian, Dr. Kenneth McLaughlin, graduate students will begin conducting a series of oral history interviews researching the process and development of technology transfer at UW. Additionally, these students will examine the personal and professional papers of J. Wesley Graham, which are archived in the Dana Porter Library; these papers provide important historical evidence on activities that took place at UW during its early years. The next process of the project will make the research electronically accessible to future scholars via typed transcripts and an interactive web site containing video and audio interviews that are linked to searchable annotated transcripts and primary documents.
Professor J. Wesley (Wes) Graham, who died on August 23, 1999, was a major and influential contributor to both the academic and business communities through his dedicated research and teachings in the fields of Math and Computer Science. Graham began his career at UW in 1959 as an assistant professor of mathematics. Aside from helping to make UW well-known for its reputable Math and Computer Science programs, Graham was best known for his teaching and research in information technology. Other contributions from Graham include the development of computer software and hardware that helped initiate several "spin-off" companies. On January 23, 2001, the J. W. Graham Information Technology Trust Fund was established at the University of Waterloo by a group of Graham's former colleagues, students, and friends.
For additional information, please contact:
Head, Special Collections
Ext. 33122
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
519 888 4883
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