Discovering Digital Culture at the National Library of Australia
In 2006 the National Library’s IT Division initiated a series of Digital Culture talks. The intention is to inform the library and wider community of ideas that are shaping the web. We are running this series to explore the implications for the library sector of new and emerging technologies. The range of speakers has been varied and their topics interesting and informative.
Michele Huston, Director of Web Publishing at the National Library, launched the series with her talk, The Surprising Popularity of the Internet Meme ‘Web 2.0’. She used Google Calendar and Library Thing to illustrate new web applications that are built, often by unlikely innovators, from services and content provided by others.
The second speaker, Angela Beesley, co-founder and vice president of Wikia, presented Wikipedia, Wikis and the Future of Free Content. As a member of the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation which runs Wikipedia and a number of other open content wikis, Angela is an authority in this environment.
In the next talk, New Ways of Collecting at Old Parliament House, Michael Richards, senior historian at Old Parliament House, presented an overview of that institution’s collecting interests, and how eBay is relevant to the institution in the current environment, particularly with the development of the Prime Minister’s Centre.
This talk was followed by Vic Elliott, Director, Scholarly Information Services and University Librarian at the Australian National University, who gave an overview of some recent developments in Australian universities in his talk, Electronic Publishing.
Most recent of the talks was Kathryn Greenhill’s Flying Librarians of Oz: What's the Fuss about Second Life and What's It Got to Do with Libraries? Second Life is an online virtual community created by its residents. There are over 250 Second Life librarians. More than 4000 people per day visit InfoIsland, where they can talk to a reference librarian, browse information resources, attend tutorials, listen to inworld broadcasts, trial databases, and attend functions like music recitals and author talks.
The Digital Culture series has been very popular, with approximately 200 people from both the Library and the public attending each talk. The series continues in 2007 with the following presentations and speakers:
ABC Digital Radio, by Abigail Thomas
Australian Library News, by Andrew Wilkins,
and
Online Journalism and Its Impact on Traditional Media, by Stephen Mayne.
More information about these talks will be made available once the dates are confirmed.
Bobby Graham
Web Content Manager
Web Publishing Branch
IT Division
National Library of Australia