DLF is providing conference support for the 2011 Electronic Resources & Libraries conference being held in Austin, Texas, February 28–March 2.
The goal of the ER&L Conference is to bring together information professionals from libraries and related industries to improve the way we collect, manage, maintain, and make accessible electronic resources in an ever-changing online environment. We do this once a year at an in-person conference. In addition, sessions are recorded and made available online. ER&L allows for cross-pollination of ideas across fields of librarianship not often brought together in traditional public services or technical services conferences.
DLF is excited to be sponsoring keynote speaker, Amanda French. Dr. Amanda French is currently THATCamp Coordinator at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, where she helps people all around the world organize interdisciplinary and interprofessional “unconferences” on humanities and technology (THATCamp stands for The Humanities And Technology Camp). One of her primary professional interests is in helping humanities scholars learn from librarians and archivists, and in helping humanities scholars, librarians, and archivists address technology issues and projects together. She has drawn on her experience as a Council on Library and Information Resources Postdoctoral Fellow to develop courses in digital methods and issues for graduate students in English at NCSU and for graduate students in the Archives and Public History Program at NYU. She recently contributed to two collections of essays: Hacking the Academy and #alt-ac: Alternative Academic Careers for Humanities Scholars.
Amanda will be presenting “Toward the Digital Public Library of America”.
Below is a brief description.
In December of 2010, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society announced a planning initiative toward a Digital Public Library of America. Countries such as Norway, France, and China have already built or begun building national digital libraries, and indeed we even have a World Digital Library (which, with less than 200 items, is not as impressive as it sounds). Despite its name, the Digital Public Library of America is the brainchild of research librarians, with stakeholders on the Steering Committee from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Smithsonian, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Mellon Foundation, and Harvard. What challenges will this key planning initiative face, and how can research libraries help? What benefits might the creation of such a national digital library have for research libraries?
