Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 21:08:23 +0100
From: David Green <david@cni.org>
Subject: Roundtable PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON, DC
Spring 1997
COMPUTING AND THE HUMANITIES: PROMISE AND PROSPECTS
A National Arts and Humanities Computing Roundtable
A national effort to foster programmatic interaction between the humanities
and the computer science communities could significantly enrich both
disciplines.
This was the unanimous sentiment of a recent roundtable involving a diverse
group of researchers and executives from the arts, humanities and computing
and communications communities on March 28, 1997, held at the National
Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C.
This lively brainstorming meeting was hosted by the Computer Science and
Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council and convened by
an extraordinary collaboration of the Board with the Coalition for
Networked Information, the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural
Heritage, and the Two Ravens Institute. Unequivocally, participants urged
further and wider multi-disciplinary discussions as a prelude to possible
practical action.
The Computing and the Humanities roundtable confirmed the organizers'
expectations that further progress requires mutual focus on several key
issues:
DIGITIZING CULTURAL WORKS
Understanding the intrinsic qualities of arts and humanities material to
enable appropriate conversion to electronic media; the development of a
critical mass of electronic works; and the encouragement of the generation
of new material that may only be possible via electronic media;
INTEROPERABILITY
Developing cross-disciplinary and cross-media interoperability of systems
and formats to enable researchers and the general public to search, find,
and appraise a wide selection of humanities material in disparate physical
locations, and to do so easily and creatively;
PRESERVATION & ACCESS
Facilitating the preservation of and access to relevant information
resources over time and across a range of systems and media;
PLANNING
Planning for the new capabilities and new organization of resources that
newer technology will continue to make possible;
INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
Understanding the need for institutional support for the deployment and
maintenance of technical infrastructure, including networks, libraries of
electronic material, and computer-based tools for working with humanities
materials, as well as the nurturing of relevant human infrastructure, such
as the support for cross-disciplinary collaboration; and
COLLABORATION
Identifying mutually satisfying mechanisms enabling humanists to work more
effectively with industry and academic technologists to generate software
and systems of value to humanists that also challenge computer scientists.
A summary report on the Roundtable proceedings will be published in the
fall of 1997 by the National Research Council. The report will also be
distributed by the American Council of Learned Societies as an ACLS
occasional paper.
AGENDA AND DESCRIPTION OF ORGANIZERS AVAILABLE AT
<http://www-ninch.cni.org/projects/C&H/roundtable.html>
===============================================================
David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@cni.org
202/296-5346 202/872-0884 fax
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