Intellectual Property Law

The Human Knowledge Project (Parts 1 and 2) at North Carolina and Duke

By Siva Vaidhyanathan

On Wednesday afternoon I have a honor of delivering the Henderson Lecture at the UNC School of Information and Library Science. The subject of my talk will be:

The Human Knowledge Project (Part 1): Four Conceptual Errors concerning Massive Digital Library Projects.

The rush to digitize the stacks of major research libraries has proceeded in haphazard fashion and with a far greater emphasis on expediency and quantity than quality and utility. This talk will outline the grand mistakes that we are making in the rush to digitize everything and offer a vision of a better way to link the greater population of the world with the greatest sources of knowledge.

You might notice that the title has a little "Part 1" on the end. That's because on February 22 I will speak down the road from UNC at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University.

That lecture will be:

The Human Knowledge Project (Part 2): How to Build the Best Possible Global Digital Library

The rush to digitize the stacks of major research libraries has proceeded in haphazard fashion and with a far greater emphasis on expediency and quantity than quality and utility. This talk will outline the principles, practices, and policies that would generate a better way to link the greater population of the world with the greatest sources of knowledge.

The Duke event is part of a whole day of amazing talks by some of my favorite people:

Friday, February 22, 2008
1:00 - 6:00 PM
Rare Book Room, Perkins Library

Books Without a Future?
A Symposium

Panel I - Recycling Books

Knowing by *.pdf
Lisa Gitelman, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Catholic University

Page, Paper Waste: Book Recycling in Victorian London
Leah Price, Harvard College Professor & Professor of English, Harvard University

Panel II - (Re)Constructing Books

Revising Thomasin von Zerclaere's "Welsche Gast": Image, Emotion, and the Creation of a Book
Kathryn Starkey, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures & Director of the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The Human Knowledge Project (Part 2): How to Build the Best Possible Global Digital Library
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia

with

Roger Chartier (Respondent), Chair of Writings and Cultures in Modern Europe, Collège de France; Professor of History, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; Annenberg Visiting Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

Roger Chartier will deliver the 2008 Franklin Humanities Institute's Annual Mellon Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities on Thursday, February 21, 5:30 PM, at the Nasher Museum auditorium.

This is a very cool opportunity. I am very grateful that both UNC and Duke have granted me these stages. I look forward to some very helpful feedback on these issues.

I am working on a very long part of my next book, The Googlization of Everything. And these two talks come out of that work. I will post text from these lectures after I give them.

Oh, and the best part is that after the UNC talk on Wednesday I am going to see Duke play UNC at the Dean Dome!

Full post as published by SIVACRACY .NET on February 04, 2008 (boomark / email).