Open Collections: Exploring Online Cultural Resources

Open Collections: Exploring Online Cultural Resources

Monday, June 18, 9:45 a.m. - 3:45 p.m.

Presented with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Registration fee: $12 (includes lunch)

Register online at http://www.movingimage.us/open or call 718-784-4520.

In fewer than fifteen years, the Internet has become an everyday, indispensable aspect of life, work, and learning, radically changing the way we access information. Presenting museum collections online, once a novelty, has become a necessity. Cultural organizations face an array of choices about how to represent their collections and how to help users interpret them.

How can institutions build accessible online collections while simultaneously meeting internal digitization needs? How can standards of quality be maintained as technologies and users change? What steps can these organizations take now to ensure that their intended audiences can find and use their collections in the future? For scholars, what are the long-term implications of this proliferation of online resources?

On June 18, Moving Image will sponsor a daylong symposium devoted to these questions. In a series of three panels, experts in the field will explore how online cultural resources, especially those composed of primary-source materials, are planned, developed, and used. The symposium will bring museum and library professionals together with information-technology experts and scholars to confront issues that involve them all. Panelists and moderators include professionals from leading cultural and academic institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Morgan Library and Museum, Yale University, and the City University of New York.

Panel topics:

Humanities Research in the Digital Age

How are scholars, teachers, researchers, and students using online humanities resources? A panel of professors who have proven themselves adept researchers will discuss how they use these resources, how that use has affected their work as scholars and educators, and how they’d like these resources to evolve in order to better serve their needs.

Sharing What We Know: Creating Useful and Sustainable Digital Content

How are museums, libraries, and other cultural heritage institutions creating and disseminating information online? How do we choose what to make available? What software and standards can we, and should we, use? How do we raise money for these projects? How useful are our online collections and exhibitions for users?

Open-Source Culture

Emerging tools and technologies promise to allow museums, libraries, and archives to efficiently and inexpensively enhance public access to their collections. An expert panel will present an illustrated tour of available and emerging tools and their benefits, costs, and impact.