Cross
Currents No 1 May 2001
A
digest of cross sectoral information management events, issues and ideas in
organisations, libraries, archives and museums, with special emphasis on
arts and the humanities.
CONTENTS
INTERNATIONAL
Artefacts
[US]
Arts
and Culture Think Tank [US]
ArtSTOR
[US]
Coalition
of Network Information Task Force Meeting [US]
Digital
Promise Project [US]
Emerging
Trends In Library and Archival Services [Singapore]
Information
Industry Consolidation [UK]
Information
Technology Reports [US]
Information
Visualisation [UK]
Institute
of Museum and Library Services [US}
Music
Information Retrieval [US].
AUSTRALIA
Archiving
Web Resources
Arts
and Humanities Think Link
Arts
E-business
Arts
Libraries Society / Australia and New Zealand
Arts
Strategy
AusStage
National Performing Arts Database
Digital
Resources For Research In the Humanities
Dramatic
Online
Electronic
Cultural Atlas Initiative
Information
Orienteering
Integration
of University Information Services
Music
Library Advisory Group
Music
at the National Library of Australia
New
Technology Special Interest Group
Performing
Arts Museum, Perth
Performing
Arts Museum, Brisbane
Performing
Arts Resource Centre and Think Tank
Performing
Arts Special Interest Group
Qualifications
Visual
Arts Gateway
FEEDBACK
ARTEFACTS
[US]
A
draft report on the role of the artefact in scholarly research and related
preservation issues is available on the website of the Council on Library and
Information Resources. Key points: there is increasing pressure to establish
digitisation and preservation priorities, increased demand by scholars for
access to original sources as well as electronic resources; funds are often
insufficient for this purpose; there is poor awareness of the vulnerability of
audiovisual resources and preservation and shortcomings in preservation
treatments; scholars can play an important role in preventing the future loss
of valuable resources by articulating clearly the full range of contemporary
formats and genres that have and will have potential research value. The
report considers the notion of digital surrogacy, articulating its advantages
and disadvantages and identifying those parts of the information
infrastructure that need to be in place to maximize its benefits. Draft report: http://www.clir.org/activities/details/artifact-docs.html. The final
report will be available in print and online in July. [Source: NINCH-Announce]
ARTS
AND CULTURE THINK TANK [US]
The
Center for Arts and Culture claims to be America's first independent think
tank for arts and cultural issues. Based in Washington DC, the centre aims to
consider the role of creativity and innovation in national and international
life through research, analysis, publication and dialogue, hopes to spark a
fresh look at the scope and contributions of art and culture to society and
stimulate links between people, groups and governments. Website: http://www.culturalpolicy.org/
[Source: Fuel4Arts]
ARTSTORE
[US]
The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is sponsoring the formation of ArtSTOR, an
independent not-for-profit organization that will develop, store and
distribute electronically digital images and related scholarly materials for
the study of art, architecture and other fields in the humanities –
particularly for teachers, students and scholars at educational and cultural
institutions. It aims to reduce costs for participating institutions by
eliminating the need for each entity or institution to create its own core
archive, address issues of sustainability, create a Web image gallery that
will facilitate the teaching of art history courses, both in the US and
abroad, build and distribute a number of deep scholarly collections, working
with content providers to obtain perpetual, non-exclusive rights to aggregate
such materials and distribute them electronically for educational and
scholarly purposes and support the mission of institutions that seek to expand
access to their own holdings for academic audiences without incurring the
financial and administrative burdens of distribution. Website: http://www.mellon.org/artstor
[Source
NINCH-Announce]
COALITION
OF NETWORK TASK FORCE MEETING [US]
Held
in Washington,
DC, April 9-10, 2001. Sessions included developments in the UK and collaborations
with CNI; evaluation; advanced networking; infrastructure developments;
preservation developments; collaboration and cooperation; course management
systems; innovative new scholarly information resources and services. Keynote
speakers included Paul Resnick, University of Michigan's School of Information
on Computer Networks, Social Networks and Social Capital.
CNI
website: http:// www.cni.org. Resnick
website for papers on networked information systems as tools for new kinds of
community collaborations: http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick
DIGITAL
PROMISE PROJECT [US}
A
coalition of educators, library, museum, science and arts officials and leaders of top information technology companies have urged the
creation of a Digital Gift to fulfill
the educational promise of the Internet and other digital technologies. The
recommendation was made in a new report A Digital Gift to the Nation, a
project of The Century Foundation, sponsored by five major foundations.
Authors Newton N. Minow and Lawrence K. Grossman liken the proposal to the
Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862, which set aside public lands to create a
world-class system of 105 universities across the nation. They urge the
creation of the Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DO IT), funded with $18
billion from the auction of the publicly owned electromagnetic spectrum,
today's equivalent of public land - an electronic land grant for the
Information Age. The idea is that the Trust will serve as a venture capital
fund for our nation's non-profit educational and public service institutions,
administered on the model of the National Science Foundation, dedicated to
innovation, experimentation and research in utilizing new telecommunications
technologies across the widest possible range of public purposes, including
the development of innovative educational prototypes and models through the
digital transformation of archives, training materials, online courses, civic
information, and quality arts and cultural programs. The Digital Promise
Project was supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Century
Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. The report
and 17 background papers are all available on http://www.digitalpromise.org.
[NINCH-Announce]
EMERGING
TRENDS IN LIBRARY AND ARCHIVAL SERVICES [SINGAPORE]
The
inaugural Emerging Trends in Library and Archival Service (e-tlas 2001 and
Asia International Book Fair/International Library Expo was held in April 2001
at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre on the theme
reinventing centres of information excellence. Details: http://www.aibf.com.sg/indexc.htm
INFORMATION
INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION [UK]
The
[London] City Information Group debated a number of issues in April: the
continuing trend of consolidation in the information industry [will it provide
better or worse information solutions?]; the changing landscape of power in
the industry and the blurring of roles between users and providers of
information [what impact does this have on vendors, end-users and information
professionals; is there a trend back towards information professionals being
at the centre of information procurement?] and other issues. Speakers: Jim Malkin [Managing Director, Thomson Financial
Europe]; Daniel Franklin [Editorial Director, Economist Intelligence Unit],
David Green [Institute of Information Scientists]..Chair: Jackie Marfleet [VP
Business Research Centre, JP Morgan]. Further details: www.cityinfogroup.co.uk
[Source SOLO]
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY REPORTS [US]
http://www.ccic.gov/ac/#pitac-reports
[Source: CNI]
INFORMATION
VISUALISATION [UK]
The
International Conference on Information Visualisation has called for papers,
videos and participation for its 5th conference. Themes: design visualisation,
visualisation in mobile communication environments, web graphics and other
topics. Further information available at: http://www.graphicslink.demon.co.uk/IV2001/.
The proceedings of IV2001 will be published and distributed by IEEE Computer
Society
INSTITUTE
OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES [US]
The
White House has nominated Robert Martin as Director of the Institute of Museum
and Library Services. Institute website: http://www.imls.gov.
[Source: NINCH-announce]
MUSIC
INFORMATION RETRIEVAL [US}
The
International Symposium on Music Information Retrieval will be held on Oct
15-17, 2001. Themes: music representation and indexing; estimating similarity
of music; problems of recognizing music optically and/or via audio; routing
and filtering for music, building up music databases, evaluation of music-IR
systems, intellectual property rights issues, user interfaces for music IR;
issues related to musical styles and genres; language modelling for music;
user needs and expectations. Web: http://ismir2001.indiana.edu/
. [Source IAML- l@cornell.edu]
This
issue of Cross currents compiled by Paul Bentley
The
Wolanski Foundation would be grateful for feedback
on the scope, format and content of this bulletin..
