Great libraries are facing both major challenges and opportunities, now and in the next decade. Research libraries operate in the context global complexity in a digital information world that envelops scholars, researchers, consumers and citizens. The ‘data deluge’ and ‘always on’ digital culture combine to be awesome in global impact, unprecedented in terms of innovative possibilities, and yet inhuman in many dimensions. The speakers consider core values of research libraries, whether those values continue to be relevant, and how they might be manifest in new ways. Questions addressed include what information should be preserved; whether the physical library still important; whether a new balance can be achieved between information as a public or private good; and how libraries can still be relevant to many disciplines.
Scholars collaborate online. Data are collected, delivered, analysed, and distributed via the Internet. Communication, both formal publications and informal exchanges, have moved online. Yet face-to-face conversations are still valued, seminars and lectures retain prestige, conferences proliferate, and frequent flyer miles accumulate. This lecture series provokes a rich discussion of innovations in digital scholarship with an international array of scholars, examining implications for the sciences, social sciences, and humanities and for libraries and publishing.
The series is co-convened by UCLA Professor Christine Borgman, Visiting Fellow and Oliver Smithies Lecturer at Balliol College; Professor William Dutton, Professor of Internet Studies at the OII and Fellow at Balliol College, and Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian and Fellow of Balliol College.
Watch the other videos from this series:
Former Visiting Fellow
Christine Borgman is Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). her sabbatical research project at the OII addressed e-Science, Digital Libraries, and Knowledge Communities.
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Former CEO, British Library