Conference 20-23 March 2002
The electronic revolution of the last decade has transformed the nature and the potential of the public collection. It is now possible to envisage libraries, museums and art galleries which are accessible, in part or in whole, online. The publishing industry is in a state of turmoil as it makes the transition to electronic dissemination of its products; scholarly research has been revolutionsed by the resources of the internet including online publishing, email, scholarly lists, and the formation of new databases. E-commerce is in the process of transforming the retail book trade. What, in this context, is the future of the archive?
Bringing together librarians, curators, archivists, publishers, booksellers and academics, the conference sought to address some of the central issues that arise from the rapidly forming new information order.
Conference details
Old College, The University of Edinburgh
March 20th – 23rd 2002
The electronic revolution of the last decade has transformed the nature and the potential of the public collection. It is now possible to envisage libraries, museums and art galleries which are accessible, in part or in whole, online. The publishing industry is in a state of turmoil as it makes the transition to electronic dissemination of its products; scholarly research has been revolutionised by the resources of the internet including online publishing, email, scholarly lists, and the formation of new databases. E-commerce is in the process of transforming the retail book trade. What, in this context, is the future of the archive?
Bringing together librarians, curators, archivists, publishers, booksellers and academics, the conference sought to address some of the central issues that arise from the rapidly forming new information order:
- What pressures exist on the public domain in intellectual and aesthetic materials? To what extent does the privatisation of intellectual resources threaten their free availability?
- What new forms of licensing and networking are emerging in the transition to the electronic archive? What ethical questions are involved in the ceding of content to electronic publishers?
- What threats are posed by the emerging oligopolies in scholarly publishing, and how can they be met?
- What are the legal implications of the electronic archiving of newspapers and journals? Can a new framework for deposit of electronic materials be devised?
- What new possibilities of access are opened up by the development of electronic archives and databases, and what constraints exist on access?
- How is the relation between originals and copies changing in the new order of things? Which materials are reproducible, which are not, and who decides?
- What futures, both technological and social, are emerging for the book and the artwork? What is the future of the bookshop in an electronic world?
Plenary speakers:
The Shepherd & Wedderburn Lecture:
James Boyle, Professor of Law, Duke University
Tom Hickerson, Associate Librarian, Cornell University
Paul Mosher, Director of Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
Clive Field, Director of Scholarship and Collections, British Library
Paul Ayris, Chair, Consortium of University Research Libraries Task Force on Scholarly Communications
Michael Mabe, Director of Academic Relations, Elsevier Science
Matthew Evans, Faber and Resource
Josie Dixon, Palgrave
Bruce Royan, SCRAN
Richard Paterson, Head of Knowledge, British Film Institute
Manfredi La Manna, Reader in Economics, University of St. Andrews
Steven Harnad, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton
Frederick Friend, Director Scholarly Communication, University College London
Michael Ashburner, Professor of Genetics, University of Cambridge; Public Library of Science
Gaetano Stucchi, European Broadcasting Union
Conference Programme, including full papers where available.
Wednesday, 20 March
Playfair Library
The Shepherd & Wedderburn Lecture
Professor James Boyle (Law, Duke University): The Opposite of Property
Chair: John Frow
SESSION 1
Professor Bruce Royan (Chief Executive, SCRAN): Virtual Enlightenment, or Digital Dark Age? A view from the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network
SESSION 2A
Eleanor Brown (National Archives of Canada): Web Access to the Original Archival Records – Challenging the Old Information Order?
Nicola Mastidoro (IntraText Digital Library): The IntraText Project: lexical hypertextualization as a new model of access to digital textual resources
J. Michael Stitt (University of Nevada, Las Vegas): The World Literature Hypermedia Project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
SESSION 2B
Maureen Burns (Australian Key Centre for Cultural & Media Policy): ABC Online as an Environment of Public Memory
John Troyer (University of Minnesota): Archiving the Corpse: Embalming Technologies of the Past and Present
SESSION 3A
Orit Halpern (Harvard University): Archives and Race: Technologies of Difference
Gary Hall (Middlesex University): The Politics and Ethics of Electronic Archiving
Eduardo Urbina (Texas A&M University): Critical editing in the digital age: Informatics and Humanities Research
SESSION 3B
Craig Sinclair (University of Massachusetts, Amherst): Curating the World Wide Web
Joseph Tennis (University of Washington): A new sense of motion: framing the idea of the archive in the new information order
SESSION 4
Richard Paterson (Head of Knowledge, British Film Institute): The Value of the Past, the Relevance to the Present
Gaetano Stucchi (European Broadcasting Union): The Audiovisual Heritage
Giorgio Dimino (RAI – Research and Technological Innovation Centre): The Multimedia Catalogue: making the RAI audiovisual heritage accessible to the general public
SESSION 5
Thomas Hickerson (Associate Librarian, Cornell University): Sociotechnical Change and the Transformation of Research Libraries and the Academic Information Environment
SESSION 6
Clive Field (Director of Scholarship and Collections, British Library) The British Library, Digital Scholarship and the National Archive
SESSION 7A
Katherine Harris (CUNY Graduate Center): Fantasies of Containment: Digitally Archiving a Nineteenth Century British Literary Annual (the Forget-Me-Not) as a Textual Moment
Robert Morris (University of Edinburgh): Back to Future: Methods, historical knowledge and practice and the implications of electronic data
Ellis Weinberger (Cambridge University Library): Security in a digital repository
SESSION 7B
John MacColl (University of Edinburgh): Free Access to Research Publications? The Potential of the Open Archives Initiative
Philip Leith (Queen’s University of Belfast): Legal, Cultural and Technical Obstacles to the use of Court-Based Information
Paul Frosh (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Picturing the Digital Info-Pixel: Photographic Archives and the Visual Content Industry
SESSION 8
Matthew Evans (Faber and Resource) and Josie Dixon (Palgrave): Scholarly Publishing Online: Technologies and Markets, Partnerships and Communities
SESSION 9
Round Table Discussion: Drivers of Change in Scholarly Communication
Paul Ayris (Chair, Consortium of University Research Libraries’ Task Force on Scholarly Communications)
Michael Mabe (Director of Academic Relations, Elsevier Science)
Manfredi La Manna (University of St. Andrews)
Stevan Harnad (University of Southampton)
Frederick Friend (University College London; SPARC)
Michael Ashburner (University of Cambridge; Public Library of Science)
Chair: Ian Mowat
6 p.m. Conclusion
7.30 p.m. Conference Dinner – George Heriot’s School
SESSION 10
Steve Bailey (Electronic Records Manager, Joint Information Systems Committee): Back to Basics: Reassessing archival priorities for the new information order
Michal Kobialka (University of Minnesota): Can there be such a thing as a postmodern archive?
Zachar Laskewicz (University of Ghent): Wondrous Textual Machines: new forms of textuality in a changing world
Closing Session: Paul Mosher (Director of Libraries, University of Pennsylvania): The Perils of Pauline on the Internet. The Future of Knowledge in the Digital Age: Memory, Metaphor, Marketing