Director of Libraries

Biography

Chris Bourg is the director of libraries at MIT, where she also has oversight of the MIT Press. She is the founding director of the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship at the Institute. Prior to assuming her role at MIT, she worked for 12 years in the Stanford University Libraries. Before Stanford, Bourg spent 10 years as an active-duty US Army officer, including three years on the faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She received her BA from Duke University, her MA from the University of Maryland, and her MA and PhD in sociology from Stanford.

Bourg has extensive experience promoting equitable and open scholarship and is an advocate for the role of libraries in promoting social justice and democracy. She co-chaired the MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on the Future of Libraries and the MIT Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research, and she is a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science as well as the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship. Bourg is a member of several advisory boards and steering committees, including the SocArXiv Steering Committee, Harvard Board of Overseers Committee to Visit the University Library, External Advisory Board of the Stanford Data Science Institute’s Center for Open and Reproducible Science, Cambia Board of Directors, and SPARC Steering Committee.