102. Deutscher Bibliothekartag in Leipzig 2013 = 5. Kongress Bibliothek & Information Deutschland
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Digital tools and methods are transforming humanities scholarship and teaching, but oftentimes humanities scholars and librarians have no clear infrastructure to support digital research or to sustain digital projects. If we are to foster digital scholarship and strengthen the digital literacies of our humanities researchers, we must find ways to build knowledge and community around the digital humanities and to increase capacity by identifying individuals and units that can support the use of new technologies and methodologies. This presentation will consider the preliminary findings of a multi-institutional environmental scan and will discuss the resulting initiatives and recommendations, as well as next steps. The environmental scan, surveying local digital humanities landscapes and current infrastructures, addresses current digital humanities practice, digital humanities in research and teaching, existing expertise and services, and perceived needs. While focusing on Penn State University, the comparative perspective of the study provides an understanding, in general, of the needs of humanities scholars and offers a point of comparison for further analysis.
How Can A Digital Be Gift?
(2013)
Return the Gift? The future of e-books. Digital content seems to correspond to the ideals of the library: it can be reproduced and distributed to a large user base with ease, making information sharing faster and more affordable than at any point in modern history. Yet the e-book format presents a number of challenges to the future of the library and to the ‘open culture’ of previous circulation models it puts into practice. Using a case study from the Goethe-Institut New York Library, this presentation will address the role of digital rights management (DRM) and the problems and promises it holds for independent publishing. Artist David Horvitz will discuss his process of working with a group of artists and independent publishers who wished donate digital formats of their books to the Goethe Institut Library without DRM limitations. Horvitz and the group he represented hoped to make their materials available to library users for an unlimited time-frame and without restrictions on the number of copies available at any one time. Both of these aspects of e-books -- their length of use and edition number -- are currently limited within the e-book system, in which each book is understood as a singular object. Horvitz’ will discuss the obstacles he faced as he attempted an unusually large and generous donation to s library, including the important role played by third-party distributors. Horvitz will propose some alternatives to the current e-book model that should be considered as libraries look to the future of online distribution.
In 2010, the 'Association of Public Libraries in the Netherlands' was split into three institutions: into SIOB, VOB (Netherlands Public Library Association) and BNL (Bibliotheek.nl. SIOB, funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, was asked to create a national strategy for public libraries in the Netherlands in order to improve library services and adjust them a changed user need and to strengthen the network of public libraries. The strategy is based on a 'cross-channel' model to combine physical and virtual services and media.