8.0025 Arts and Humanities Data Service (1/85)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Mon, 23 May 1994 22:35:12 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 8, No. 0025. Monday, 23 May 1994.
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 20:15:45 EDT
From: Harold Short <udaa400@bay.cc.kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: Arts and Humanities Data Service: Feasibility Study
Greetings from London
Although the following announcement is perhaps most directly relevant
to the British higher education community, the international
dimensions of the project are very strongly recognised, and
information and opinions are being widely sought outside the U.K.
in Europe and North America and beyond. Responses from any
Humanist subscriber would be most welcome.
Best wishes
Harold Short
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U.K. ARTS AND HUMANITIES DATA SERVICE: FEASIBILITY STUDY
The Information Services Sub-Committee (ISSC) of the Higher
Education Funding Councils' Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC) is funding a feasibility study into the establishment of
an Arts and Humanities Datacentre. It is intended that such a
datacentre, which might in structure be highly distributed,
would improve access to electronic resources in various formats,
including text, image, and sound, and that it would encourage
the use of electronic materials in teaching, learning and
research.
The creation of a datacentre for the Arts and Humanities has
been recommended in a number of recent reports, including the
Follett Report and the joint British Library / British Academy
report _Information Technology in Humanities Scholarship_.
The feasibility study is being carried out by Lou Burnard of the
University of Oxford and Harold Short of King's College London,
and is overseen by a Steering Group under the Chairmanship of Dr
Richard Heseltine, Librarian of the University of Hull.
In the course of the study it is hoped to consult as widely as
possible within the Higher Education community, primarily in the
United Kingdom, but also abroad. As a preliminary to this, a
workshop was held at the British Academy at which an invited
group of individuals with expert interests in this field
discussed the proposal.
Currently, a number of institutions and individuals known to
have an interest are being approached directly, and paper and
electronic versions of the workshop report are being made
available as widely as possible. The report is available by
anonymous ftp from:
ota.ox.ac.uk
in the directory ota/AHD (note case)
under the fileame workshop.report.
This message is being distributed on a number of mailing lists
with the purpose of inviting comment, from anyone with Higher
Education interests, on any of the issues being addressed in the
feasibility study. Written submissions should be sent no later
than 30 June to:
AHDS@vax.ox.ac.uk
The Workshop took as its key document the proposal originally
submitted to the JISC, on the basis of which the present
feasibility study was funded. This document may be obtained from
either of the proposers:
Lou Burnard
Oxford Text Archive
Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 6NN
Email: lou@vax.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 0865 273238
Fax: 0865 273275
Harold Short
Computing Centre
King's College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
Email: h.short@bay.cc.kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 071 873 2739
Fax: 071 836 1799.