The new Wheeler Centre Melbourne

January 29, 2010 at 9:59 am · Filed under books

The new Wheeler Centre is about to open in Melbourne and is hosting a number of events.  It appear to be somewhere between a think tank and writers centre. Can’t wait!

Our City of Literature status is not about Dickens on the tram, Nabokov in the Great Southern Stand or a Bronte or two over breakfast. It’s a recognition and celebration of Melbourne’s passionate readers.

We’re home to many of Australia’s best and best-loved writers, past and present. We host an extraordinary network of booksellers, a diverse publishing culture and a vibrant community of thinkers.

Being a City of Literature is about engagement locally and globally. Because there’s a public conversation going on: in our papers and online, on our TVs and radios, in our workplaces and homes. Books, writing and ideas flow through Melbourne and there is something for everyone (link).

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Tim Berners Lee on free data and the BBC’s Virtual Revolution

January 27, 2010 at 2:11 am · Filed under data, governance

Tim Berners-Lee discusses the launch of the government’s new open data project, and Dan Gluckman explains why the BBC was so keen to open the development of a new series about the social history of the web (link) Also see: http://data.gov.uk/

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Manuscript account of Newton’s apple made public

January 19, 2010 at 12:53 am · Filed under digital humanities, digitisation, humanities computing

The manuscript is one of a number published online to mark the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, and can be accessed at www.royalsociety.org/turning-the-pages (from the Age)

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TEI by example

January 16, 2010 at 2:23 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing

The Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) of King’s College London, and the Department of Information Studies of University College London, are pleased to announce that funding has been secured to develop the online resource “TEI by Example”. Featuring freely available online tutorials walking individuals through the different stages in marking up a document in TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), these online tutorials will provide examples for users of all levels. Examples will be provided of different document types, with varying degrees in the granularity of markup, to provide a useful teaching and reference aid for those involved in the marking up of texts (link).

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The Case for Books; Past Present and Future

January 5, 2010 at 10:13 pm · Filed under books

I am back in Melbourne now and normal viewing will resume once when I find my feet.

In the mean time, here is a new book from the cultural historian, Robert Darnton who has recently taken up the post as Librarian at Harvard University.

“In The Case for Books, Robert Darnton offers an in-depth examination of the book from its earliest beginnings to its shifting role today in popular culture, commerce, and the academy. In a lasting collection drawn from previously published and new work alike, Robert Darnton lends unique authority to the life and role of the book in society. The resulting book is a wise work of scholarship – one that requires readers to carefully consider how the digital revolution will broadly affect the marketplace of ideas.”–BOOK JACKET.
Full contents Google and the future of books — The information landscape — The future of libraries — Lost and found in cyberspace — E-books and old books — Gutenberg-e — Open access — A paean to paper — The importance of being bibliographical — The mysteries of reading — The history of book (link to library catalogue)

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