The Nature of Illumination: Cultural Heritage and the Technology of Culture (CUA CHIM Forum talk)

A bit delayed in posting this; I've been working on the written version (extract below). Stay tuned for that somewhere in the future ...

The Nature of Illumination: Cultural Heritage and the Technology of Culture. Martin R. Kalfatovic. Cultural Heritage Information Management Forum. The Catholic University of America. Washington, DC. 5 June 2015

The Nature of Illumination: Cultural Heritage and the Technology of Culture. from Martin Kalfatovic

Introduction

In both its creation and transmission, technology has driven our shared human culture. Libraries (and the congruent institutions of archives and museums), in varying forms and modalities across time and culture, have proven to be the best, though too often fragile, vessels for the transmission of culture through both time and space. Over the past thirty years, new technologies, specifically the Internet, have expanded the reach of our “memory institutions” while at the same time posing challenges to their relevance from the world at large. At the same time, long held practices around customer service; curation, selection, and preservation of collections; and the place of the library in the knowledge creation are being questioned from both inside and outside these institutions.

Increasingly, technology is providing the means to bring research libraries closer together, to unite dispersed yet related collections, and to engage a new and wider audience that can enhance the diffusion of institutional knowledge. Our cultural heritage professionals of today and the future will need not only a firm grounding in their subject areas, but also a deep and be broadly conversant in technology.

As William Gibson has noted, “Time moves in one direction, memory in another. We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.”1 Having constructed these artifacts, it remains our mission to provide the vision and resources to maintain them for the future.

Fenella G. France from the Library of Congress on developing web accessible infrastructure at #chimforum2015

Opening panel, #CHIMForum2015

QotD: "It is easy, retrospectively, to endow one’s youth with a false precocity or a false innocence" / Evelyn Waugh

"It is easy, retrospectively, to endow one’s youth with a false precocity or a false innocence; to tamper with the dates marking one’s stature on the edge of the door. ... I should like to think—indeed I sometimes do think—that I decorated those rooms with Morris stuffs and Arundel prints and that my shelves were filled with seventeenth-century folios and French novels of the second empire in Russia-leather and watered silk. But this was not the truth. On my first afternoon I proudly hung a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers over the fire and set up a screen, painted by Roger Fry with a Provençal landscape, which I had bought inexpensively when the Omega workshops were sold up. I displayed also a poster by McKnight Kauffer and Rhyme Sheets from the Poetry Bookshop, and, most painful to recall, a porcelain figure of Polly Peachum which stood between black tapers on the chimney-piece." Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Yup, I did graduate

Alas, it was not Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" but rather "Starry Night" that graced my room that first freshman year in college. I was also lucky to have a roommate that was quirky and shared, I humbly add, a taste in 60s music (and thank you Steve for introducing me to The Blues Project, John Mayall, and the deeper cuts of the Grateful Dead).

In addition to "Starry Night" our decor also included Milton Glaser's famed poster of a psychedelic Dylan (no McKnight Kauffer), and as the year wore on, in place of the Polly Peachum figure, an actual tree stump (which sprouted mushrooms over winter break), the top of a lamppost that when hung from the ceiling and hit with tossed dice rang like a bell (you had to be there). Not sure if I had pretentious French novels that first year (Huysman's  À rebours and Françoise Sagan would come later), but I do recall William Golding's Pincher Martin on the shelves. The next three years, though they had interesting element and a series of new roommates, didn't have that initial burst of the new that first year.

The Big 80s, times of Big Glasses! (sitting by two Annes)

And so the college years flew past and, wow! To paraphrase Floyd, one day you wake to find, THIRTY years have got behind you .... ergo, it was way way back on 21 May 1983 (see diploma above) that I graduated from The Catholic University of America. BA, English, focus, Medieval, dropped (after 1.5 years) architecture.

That year, the commencement speaker was James Billington. Dr. Billington was then the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center International Center for Scholars (semi-, kinda, sorta part of the Smithsonian). Just a few years later, he became the Librarian of Congress, a post he's held since then. So, in that speech by Dr. Billington (and no, couldn't tell you a lick of what he said), my future was crystallized  first, by ending up working at the Library of Congress after graduation, and then moving on to the Smithsonian Institution. I've subsequently met Dr. Billington on a number of occasions (let's all say "World Digital Library" -- but nope, I do not believe he would have a flicker of who I was), but never mentioned our hooded congruence.

And so, now, looking back on an unimaginable thirty years, the false precocity (which I now freely and humbly admit too) grown to, what? With unimaginable successes in areas that never existed in 1983? With dashed dreams that were probably best unfilled ... I can honestly say, in the words of the OTHER Grateful Dead lyricist  (Robert Hunter) -- the one I've not had the pleasure to meet (which would be John Perry Barlow) ... "what a long, strange trip it's been!".

James Billington, a little to the right of the guys standing

On receipt of the Raymond Von Dran Memorial Award

I was honored to receive the Raymond Von Dran Memorial Award from the School of Library and Information Science, The Catholic University of America, on 5 April 2013. The award was giving at the 23rd Elizabeth Stone Lecture by Blane Dessy.

About the award:

The Raymond Von Dran Memorial Award is an award open to Catholic University School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) alumni, instituted in the memory of Raymond Von Dran, who served as the second Dean of SLIS (1983-87). Von Dran's final position was Dean of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and his obituary can be seen here.

Selection Criteria:
The SLIS Alumni Association will grant this award during its annual Elizabeth W. Stone Lecture in spring 2013. We are seeking nominations of SLIS alumni who, through their contributions to the library and information profession, have exhibited the qualities Von Dran was noted for throughout his career: innovation, collaboration, and leadership.

My remarks:

I want to thank the School and University, and particularly Dr. Ingrid Hsieh-Yee who has been my consistent and constant contact with the school for over twenty years, for this award which recognizes innovation, collaboration, and leadership.

I think it’s important to note that those three characters are something that grows out of the larger environment here at library and information science program at CUA and is embodied not only in those who receive this award, but the larger community. A continuum of faculty, students, and alumni. 

When I look back, I think of the professors during my time as a student, Dean Elizabeth Stone, of course, Francis Witty, Mathilde Rovelstad, and David Batty (whose ruminations on database and systems design I think about nearly every day).

Also, I think of my current and former colleagues who are alum, Diane Kresh (Arlington Public Library), Tom Garnett (Smithsonian Libraries, retired), Lu Rossignol (Smithsonian Libraries, retired), and Mary Augusta Thomas (Deputy Director of Smithsonian Libraries).

And my fellow students that I’ve stayed in touch over the years; to name a few: Steven Kerchoff (Department of State), Sally Dewey (Arlington Public Library), Kathryn Philips (Smithsonian Libraries), and more, including my wife, Mary Kalfatovic (The Committee Room).

And the students I had during my tenure as an adjunct faculty, some of whom are past or current coworkers at Smithsonian Libraries: Kent Boese, Yue Shu, Michael Smith. And others, like David Mao, Giselle Foss, and others who have stayed in touch. And also last year’s Von Dran awardee, Patrick Timony.

And lastly, to those more recent graduates that I've been privileged to work with, and here I'll give a shoutout to Suji DeHart (currently in Kuala Lumpur), Erin Thomas (Smithsonian Libraries), Andrea Mullen (interning at Smithsonian Libraries),; and Bianca Crowley, the indispensable Collections Coordinator for the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Truly a “great chain” of innovation, collaboration, and leadership that I’m proud to be part of.

Thanks again!

Blane Dessy presenting the 23rd Stone Lecture at CUA/SLIS

Blane Dessy, currently director of FEDLINK, was the speaker at the 23rd annual Elizabeth Stone Lecture at The Catholic University of America's School of Library and Information Science on 5 April 2013.

22nd Stone Lecture, CUA SLIS

Lisa Swei accepts thanks for the contributions of Mathilde Rovelstad

Patrick Timony, Van Dram Award Winner

Deanna Marcum, speaker