Digital age: challenges for libraries

Information technology and globalization are the two most influential forces of the modern times. IT has given new meanings to the transmission, dissemination and storage of information; whereas globalisation is reducing the importance of geographical boundaries. Libraries as an important social institution have been affected by these changes. Information retrieval, information storage and information transmission are the core competencies of the libraries. Digital age characterized by efficient graphic user interface, digital imaging, efficient transfer and storage of texts, is presenting important challenges for the libraries. Information privacy, copyrights, and information security are some of the challenging issues faced by the libraries in digital age. This paper is an attempt to present as well as to discuss the implications of these issues so that strategies can be devised to address them effectively and efficiently

Teaching Manuscripts in the Digital Age

This chapter reflects on the author’s practical experience teaching palaeography in several different contexts at the start of the so-called “digital age”. Material for manuscript-studies is becoming available at an enormous rate: perhaps most obvious are the results of the large-scale digitisation programmes which are making high-quality colour facsimiles of manuscripts available online to wide audiences. At the same time, Virtual Learning Environments provide new possibilities for teaching and learning, and many tools for research on manuscripts can also be used for teaching. Perhaps more fundamentally, however, it has often been noted that scholarship is changing as a result of digital tools, resources, and methods. What, then, of teaching? Should the teaching of manuscript studies also change along with the scholarly discipline, bringing the Digital Humanities into our classes on palaeography and codicology? To begin answering this question, and to suggest some pedagogical possibilities brought about by technology, the author’s own experiences are discussed. Some limitations of technology for teaching are then considered, and some general remarks are then provided on the relationship between palaeography and Digital Humanities, two fields which are both fighting for recognition as full academic disciplines and not “mere” Hilfswissenschaften

International lessons for the digital age

Some commentators hold the view that the digital divide is a problem largely caused by lack of access to appropriate technologies which, when overcome, will act as a virtual panacea for many interlinked ills. Yet, others see this as far too simplistic an analysis in the search for radical solutions in a world of such extreme social inequality and global inequity. This paper will argue for a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to finding those solutions, advocating a greater amount of needs-based work in this field, getting to the root of the problem by taking into account the particular set of conditions within each situation or case study. At the same time it will strive to create a more harmonious world view where each small scale project is seen as part of a network searching for broader solutions rather than an end product in themselves. In order to provide a framework for this argument, and support theories with informed practice, a case study of a teacher training project delivered to Rwandan students, through the medium of the English language and new technologies, will be used as an example of what has been achieved so far in the field of online learning, and what lessons could be learned for the future. The paper shall also argue for greater involvement on the part of British universities, so that voyages into this multidimensional terrain, widely explored but largely uncharted, remain more pedagogic than economi

Codicological Descriptions in the Digital Age

Although some of the traditional roles played by codicological descriptions in the print era have not changed when translated to digital environments, other roles have been redefined and new ones have emerged. It has become apparent that in digital form the relationship of codicological descriptions to the books they describe has undergone fundamental changes. This article offers an analysis of three of the most significant of these changes: 1) the emergence of new purposes of and uses for these descriptions, especially with respect to the usefulness of the highly specific and specialized technical language common to codicological descriptions; 2) a movement from a one-to-one relationship between a description and the codex that it represents to a one-to-many relationship between codices, descriptions, metadata, and digital images; and 3) the significance of a shift from the symmetry of using books to study other books to the asymmetry of using digital tools to represent and analyze books

Understanding the social in a digital age

Datafication, algorithms, social media and their various assemblages enable massive connective processes, enriching personal interaction and amplifying the scope and scale of public networks. At the same time, surveillance capitalists and the social quantification sector are committed to monetizing every aspect of human communication, all of which threaten ideal social qualities, such as togetherness and connection. This Special Issue brings together a range of voices and provocations around ‘the social’, all of which aim to critically interrogate mediated human connection and their contingent socialities. Conventional methods may no longer be adequate, and we must rethink not only the fabric of the social but the very tools we use to make sense of our changing social formations. This Special Issue raises shared concerns with what the social means today, unpicking and rethinking the seams between digitization and social life that characterize today’s digital age

Reset button: place in the digital age

Abstract The computer is to contemporary society what the machine was to modernism this statement form Christine Boyer has a profound effect on the way we currently engage with our built environment. The architecture and urban issues that come with this digital era are important and have a profound affect on our public services, the character and content of our public spaces and the control and access of power. Disciplinary spaces once described by Foucault are now dislocated, hidden within electronic global networks. This paper involves speculating on how digital technology and communication gain importance over material form and how cities are becoming saturated. Our culture is now one of simulation. The paper draws upon work undertaken at the University of Lincoln and manifests itself both within a Poststructuralist and later a phenomenological framework it speaks of the need to readdress what Paul Virilio calls our overexposed city and what Charlene Spretnak suggests is the flattening process of mass culture. Embracing the need to maintain some degree of autonomy in a world wishing to reduce everything to one vast commodity the paper seeks to through independent research explore projects, which speak of a sensual knowledge such concepts as anxiety and the “un-canny”, interiority, three dimensional space and perception of it, the proposition of capturing “real” three dimensional space as a two dimensional image, the oppositions between the real and the imagined, solid and void, permanence and transience, darkness and light, memory and loss. As Sverre Fehn best sums up “When man conquered darkness the latent generosity of night ceased to exist

Library performance measurement in the digital age

Book synopsis: University libraries around the world have embraced the possibilities of the digital learning environment, facilitating its use and proactively seeking to develop the provision of electronic resources and services. The digital environment offers opportunities and challenges for librarians in all aspects of their work - in information literacy, virtual reference, institutional repositories, e-learning, managing digital resources and social media. The authors in this timely book are leading experts in the field of library and information management, and are at the forefront of change in their respective institutions. University Libraries and Digital Learning Environments will be invaluable for all those involved in managing libraries or learning services, whether acquiring electronic resources or developing and delivering services in digital environments