History
The Virtual Observatory and the Roman de la Rose: Unexpected Relationships and the Collaborative Imperative
Cyberinfrastructure: Leveraging Change at our Institutions. An interview with James J. O'Donnell
The Institute of Museum and Library Services
In the Knowledge Society of the 21st Century, digital content will be created, managed, preserved and disseminated within an infrastructure that is seamless and virtually invisible to users. The future digital environment will include digital representations of accumulated historical knowledge as well as vast amounts of new content. Future generations of users will build on this existing information and preserved digital content to create new knowledge and forms of expression. Libraries, museums, and archives are vital components of the emerging cyberinfrastructure.
Cultural heritage institutions are developing digital repositories to manage and preserve collections converted from analog formats as well as those that are digital-only. They are also leading efforts to develop tools, standards, and best practices to improve the management, discovery, presentation, and use of digital content. IMLS provides grant opportunities to libraries, museums, archives, and institutions of higher education for research, demonstrationl, and implementation projects to enhance library and museum services and for programs to educate the next generations of library and museum professionals. IMLS grant programs that support cyberinfrastructure include:
National Leadership Grants
- Research and Demonstration Projects
- Building Digital Resources
- Library and Museum Collaborations
- Collaborative Planning Grants
Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program
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- Visit http://www.imls.gov
Involving Students in Digital Storytelling: A NERCOMP SIG Event
The notion that education liberates runs deep in the digital storytelling movement. Small wonder then that liberal arts educators take such an interest in the project. Anyone planning to use digital storytelling, however, faces a number of non-trivial challenges, some logistical, some pedagogical, some bureaucratic:
- How does one run/structure a workshop?
- Who are good candidates for participation?
- What tools should participants use?
- How, if at all, will the stories be published?
- What about copyrighted content?
- How might digital storytelling be incorporated into a syllabus?
- Can digital stories be 'scholarly'?
CFP: Currents in Electronic Literacy's upcoming issue, "The Commons"
Sistine Chapel in Second Life
The Sistine Chapel was built in the 15th century and is decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo and other great painters of the Italian Renaissance.
In this Second Life recreation, the interior is depicted in great detail, while the exterior is an approximation. Unlike in the real-life chapel, here you can fly up to the top of a wall for a close inspection, look down at the inlaid floor, or even sit on a window ledge!
The lower tier of the chapel normally displays panels with painted draperies. On special occasions, these panels are covered with tapestries designed by Raphael. Here, you can click to show or hide the tapestries whenever you want.
Rome Reborn 1.0
Rome Reborn 1.0 resides at the crossroads of history, archeology, technology and imagination. You can visit the project's website or read a short report on its unveiling from CNET News.com where you will learn that the simulation "shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls in 320 A.D., when Rome was the multicultural capital of the Western world." One of the more provocative tidbits from the project site is the fact that the creators are hoping to incorporate the work of other scholars who would "contribute their work as bricks in the larger edifice." If that dream of collaboration is realized, the virtual city would double as a spatialization of particular scholarly projects and as a metaphor for the scholarly endeavor at large. At the same time, as you view the video clips on the project site, you may be reminded of Second Life and find yourself wishing to move about in Rome Reborn as a toga-clad avatar. The pedagogical (and other) possibilities are staggering.
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- Visit http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/
Muzzy Lane Announces New Series of Video Games
Digital Image Interview Series: Henry Art
Digital Image Interview Series
Henry Art, Biology/Environmental Science, Williams College
Henry
Art, the Samuel Fessenden Clarke Professor of Biology at Williams
College, has been a member of the faculty since 1970. He has taught
courses in environmental studies, field botany, ecology and land use
planning, through the biology department and the environmental studies
program. His research includes long-term ecological studies of the
Hopkins Memorial Forest. Innovative use of images has been key to both
his teaching and research. In this interview, he is joined by Jonathan
Leamon, a member of Williams's Office for Instructional Technology.
Academic Commons: How have you used images in your teaching and how has digital technology come into play?
Art:
Images are key to the way I teach. For example, I've been teaching a
new course on the natural history of the Berkshires. We've set up a
website on the Williams CONTENTdm server with maps, video and images of
various physical sites that are used in the course, and we've now made
this available to the public:
Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age
The study, "Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age,†was nicely discussed by Jennifer Howard in her article in the Chronicle of Higher Educationthis summer: "Picture Imperfect,†(August 4, 2006) http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i48/48a01201.htm.
