Reconnecting Science and Humanities in Digital Libraries

A Symposium Sponsored by
The University of Kentucky and The British Library

19-21 October 1995
Marriott's Resort at Griffin Gate, Lexington, Kentucky

Objective:

Digital libraries in the humanities pose computationally and methodologically challenging problems that hamper humanists, but offer computer scientists exciting areas for research and development. The objective of this symposium is to improve access to humanistic information in digital form and mechanisms for access by creating closer links between the humanities and the sciences.

Goals:

1. To produce a summary statement of the challenges offered by digital research and by the digital library in the humanities which collaboration between the sciences and the humanities can address.

2. To identify technical and research issues crucial to the humanities that are being only peripherally addressed by current National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for digital libraries.

3. To outline areas of development offering opportunities for partnership with commercial ventures that will assist in the dissemination of or access to digital libraries by scholars and the general public.

Program schedule:

Thursday, 19 October 1995.

7:30 p.m.: Reception and buffet at the Clock Tower reception area at Griffin Gate. Coat and tie. Welcoming comments by Charles T. Wethington, Jr., President of the University of Kentucky; Elizabeth Zinser, Chancellor of the Lexington Campus; Fitzgerald Bramwell, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies; and Andrew Phillips, Director of Humanities and Social Sciences and Keeper of Printed Books, The British Library.

Friday, 20 October 1995.

9:30 a.m.:

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

(Kevin Kiernan, Professor of English, Electronic Beowulf Project, University of Kentucky)

10-11:30 a.m.:

1. THE ROLE OF COMPUTER SCIENCE IN UNITING SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

(Marilyn Deegan, Professor of Humanities Computing, DeMontfort University, Chair)

- The Digital Library in theory and practice: a historian's view, Andrew Prescott, The British Library

- Projects and their place in Digital Libraries, Richard Heseltine, University of Hull

11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch at the Boone Faculty Club, sponsored by Lexmark International.

1:30-5 p.m.:

2. EASE OF ACCESS FOR NON-SCIENTISTS

(Patrick Conner, Centennial Professor of Arts and Sciences, West Virginia University, Chair)

- Humanities needs and expectations for intelligent graphical user interfaces, Seamus Ross, British Academy

- Content-based searching of large-image databases, Mary Larsgaard, University of California, Santa Barbara

- Content-based multimedia data-management and efficient remote access, Brent Seales and James Griffioen, University of Kentucky

3:15-3:45 Tea and Coffee Break

- Electronic librarians, intelligent network agents, and information catalogues, Edward Fox, Virginia Tech

- Dancing to the telephone: network demands and opportunities, Charles Henry, Vassar College

5:30-7: Visit to ATM lab.

Saturday, 21 October.

9-12:30:

3. MAXIMUM FIDELITY OF IMAGES IN HUMANITIES DATABASES

(Jennifer Trant, Manager, Imaging Initiative, Getty Art History Information Program, Chair)

- Images: Quantity is not always Quality, Michael Lesk, Bellcore Laboratories

- From conversion to presentation: benchmarking image quality requirements, Anne Kenney, Cornell University

- Digital preservation: a time bomb for Digital Libraries, Margaret Hedstrom, University of Michigan

10:45-11:15 Tea and Coffee Break

- A Survey of Compressed Domain Processing Techniques , Brian Smith, Cornell University

- Bound Images: Encoding and Analysis, Gerhard Jaritz, Senior Research Fellow, Institut für Realienkunde, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Krems

4. MECHANISMS FOR FUNDING

(Deian Hopkin, Dean of Human Sciences, London Guildhall University, Chair)

- Funding the Digital Library: the British Experience, Derek Law, Kings College, London

- Digital Libraries and NEH and NSF, Stephen Griffin, National Science Foundation

3:15-3:45 Tea and Coffee Break

3:45-6:00 p.m.:

Concluding Roundtable

Sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, the FACTS Center, the Center for Computational Sciences, the University Libraries, the Department of English, the Department of Computer Science, the Honors Program, and Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Kentucky; the Center for Information Management and Advanced Technology for Scholarship (CIMATS) at London Guildhall University; and the British Library.