November 1, 2007
Mark Kornbluh
Director of MATRIX, the Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences
Michigan State University
“Cyberinfrastructure,” a word coined by the National Science Foundation, may be an awkward choice of language, but the underlying concept that it represents has profound implications for all aspects of academy. We are at a moment in time where two decades of dramatic changes in computing and information is enabling paradigmatic changes in research and teaching across all fields. Just as physical libraries were cornerstones of twentieth-century universities, digital libraries are essential to e-research and e-teaching. This talk will look at the challenges posed by this transformation and the opportunities that it presents for libraries.
Mark Kornbluh is Director of MATRIX, the Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences, the largest digital humanities center in the United States at Michigan State University, where he is also Professor and Chairperson of the History Department and Professor of Computer Science. He has directed a wide range of digital library research projects including the National Gallery of the Spoken Word and the African Online Digital Library and served on the National Academy of Science’s Advisory Committee on the National Archives electronic records project.