COMPUTER SCIENCE & THE HUMANITIES BUILDING BLOCKS

Project Update

May 5, 2000

A. OVERALL GOALS OF BUILDING BLOCKS

1. To assist societies determine how best to serve their fields in the networked digital future
2. To convene humanists, computer and information scientists and technologists in an organized, national forum to articulate needs and design projects that answer those needs.
3. To define compelling shorter-term collaborative projects for humanists, computer scientists and information technologists that can be submitted by societies to the National Science Foundation and other foundations.
4. To think through teachers' and researchers' intellectual and practical needs and to develop a longer-term research agenda for collaboration between scientists and humanists in creating the next generation of software, tools and digital environments that will themselves enable the production of more deeply usable networked cultural resources.

B. FUNDING

The first stage of Building Blocks has been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation ($105,000) and the National Science Foundation ($50,000).

C. DEVELOPMENTS

WORKSHOPS

The first stage of Building Blocks includes a 3-day workshop, September 21-24, 2000, in Washington, DC, with a three-part objective:

• to articulate by field and across disciplines the most pressing needs in the humanities that networked computing should be able to meet;
• to outline immediate practical projects; and
• to outline a longer-term research agenda.

The workshops will mix field-based discussion, cross-disciplinary topical sessions (for discussion of issues and developments ranging from new forms of collaborative work and the implications of digital text to visualization and new forms of disemination) and plenary sessions for building common strategies.

SOCIETIES & FIELDS

26 societies (including two non-ACLS members) are working in five fields: History, Interdisciplinary Studies, Language & Literature, Performing Arts, and Visual and Media Studies. Each field is organized by a field committee that plans the details of its field workshop and selects workshop participants.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Field committees are currently surveying the working process and perceived needs of some 100 researchers, teachers, public humanists and librarians in each field by means of a set of nine questions. The responses will be used to help detail the agenda of the Workshops as well as to mentally prime the workshop participants.

PROPOSED NEXT STEPS

• Representatives will report out to societies with outlines of proposed projects;
• For Fall 2000 CAO Meeting, Steering Committee will report on results and discuss outline proposals;
• Societies, with advice from the Computer Science & Humanities Steering Committee, will submit project proposals to NSF and other foundations;
• Building Blocks Steering Committee will coordinate Building Blocks discoveries with first in series of Humanities and Computer Science conferences planned to begin in Spring 2001 (funding pending).

D. FIELDS, FIELD REPRESENTATIVES AND PARTICIPATING SOCIETIES

HISTORY Field Representatives: Lindy Biggs (SHOT) & Mark Kornbluh (AHA) Participating Societies: American Antiquarian Society American Historical Association American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Economic History Association History of Science Society Organization of American Historians Society for the History of Technology   INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES Field Representatives Anne Betteridge & Brenda Bickett (MESA) & David Block (LASA) Participating Societies: African Studies Association American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies American Studies Association Association for Jewish Studies Latin American Studies Association Middle East Studies Association Renaissance Society of America   LANGUAGE & LITERATURE Field Representatives Steve Olsen (MLA) & Elaine Martin (ACLA) Participating Societies: American Comparative Literature Association Linguistic Society of America Modern Language Association National Council for Teachers of English

PERFORMING ARTS Field Representatives Kate Van Winkle Keller & Robert Keller (SAM) Participating Societies: American Musicological Society American Society for Theater Research American Theatre in Higher Education Society for American Music VISUAL & MEDIA STUDIES Field Representatives Sally Promey & Catherine Hays (Univ. of Maryland/CAA) Participating Societies: College Art Association Society for Cinema Studies Society of Architectural Historians Visual Resources Association

BUILDING BLOCKS