Digitising Africa
February 16, 2011 1 Comment
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In my opinion (and by now, you are probably aware that I have several of them!), digitisation probably holds the most advantages for the Majority World. For those who I’ve never met, what I call the ‘Majority World’ is what others call ‘developing’ or ‘third world’. I think that both of these terms are derogatory, suggesting the marginalised ‘other’ in binary pair conceptualisation. The Minority World is just that: those of us lucky enough to have access to more than one meal a day, electricity, clean water, sewerage systems, medical care and education are in the minority of the world’s population.
I am glad to share, therefore, this announcement of a forthcoming meeting on digital curation which will take place in South Africa. Perhaps some of you will be in a position to attend. I particularly like their reference to the importance of collaboration: the very concept that inspired this blog!
From: Dr Martie van Deventer (mvandeve@csir.co.za)
The draft programme for the Fourth African Scholarship and Curation
Conference (and its workshops) from 17-19 May 2011 has been posted on
the website: see http://www.nedicc.ac.za/test/Programme.aspx. The
registration function has been activated. We look forward to welcoming
you at the conference!
There is an early bird discount (providing we receive your registration
fees before 15 April 2011).
We would appreciate your assistance in distributing information about
the conference to colleagues in Africa.
4th African Conference for Digital Scholarship and Curation
Dates: 17 -19 May 2011
Venue: CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
*Innovation & collaboration in the digital research and learning
environments*
Collaboration is an acknowledged and important source of innovative thinking. The rapid development of new and emerging technologies have ensured that the creation and pursuit of new ideas can be brought to community by networks of individuals, selected because of their individual contributions and credibility, and operating in a coordinated manner. This conference will attempt to surface some of the innovations brought about as a result of such collaborations. We will also endeavour to highlight the role technology plays in enabling collaborations and in collectively building repositories of data and knowledge.
The deployment of powerful computers, high-speed networks, and large scale storage technologies has made the academic and research landscape increasingly dynamic. Emerging professional are much more information and computer literate than ever before. They also have a very different expectation for both the university and work experience. These transformations oblige us in academia, research and the general information service provision industry to seriously seek and develop strategies and solutions to effectively harness the new opportunities.
The 2-day conference is organized under the joint banner of the Network of Data and Information Curation Centres (NeDICC), the University of Botswana and the University of Pretoria (South Africa). The conference will address various issues of digital scholarship, digital curation and the accompanying emerging technologies.
Related Articles
- Event: Weaving personal and organizational networks: 2.0 with a purpose, 19 May 2011, Pretoria, South Africa (gurteen.com)
- www curation – Digital Curator (arcuterie.wordpress.com)
- Review of A guide to digitisation (girlinthearchive.wordpress.com)
- Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography available (teleread.com)
- Project Management for a Digitisation Project (girlinthearchive.wordpress.com)
- Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography, Version 2 (girlinthearchive.wordpress.com)
- Digitising slides and negs (oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com)
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