5:00 PM Session VII. Conclusion.
General discussion.
What topics were omitted or given short shrift that anyone
would like to talk about now?
Is there a "group" here? What should the group do next, if
anything? What should the Library of Congress do next, if
anything?
Moderator: Prosser Gifford, Director for Scholarly Programs,
Library of Congress
6:00 PM Adjourn
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Appendix II: ABSTRACTS
SESSION I
Avra MICHELSON Forecasting the Use of Electronic Texts by
Social Sciences and Humanities Scholars
This presentation explores the ways in which electronic texts are likely to be used by the non-scientific scholarly community. Many of the remarks are drawn from a report the speaker coauthored with Jeff Rothenberg, a computer scientist at The RAND Corporation.
The speaker assesses 1) current scholarly use of information technology and 2) the key trends in information technology most relevant to the research process, in order to predict how social sciences and humanities scholars are apt to use electronic texts. In introducing the topic, current use of electronic texts is explored broadly within the context of scholarly communication. From the perspective of scholarly communication, the work of humanities and social sciences scholars involves five processes: 1) identification of sources, 2) communication with colleagues, 3) interpretation and analysis of data, 4) dissemination of research findings, and 5) curriculum development and instruction. The extent to which computation currently permeates aspects of scholarly communication represents a viable indicator of the prospects for electronic texts.
The discussion of current practice is balanced by an analysis of key trends in the scholarly use of information technology. These include the trends toward end-user computing and connectivity, which provide a framework for forecasting the use of electronic texts through this millennium. The presentation concludes with a summary of the ways in which the nonscientific scholarly community can be expected to use electronic texts, and the implications of that use for information providers.