Eric,
This looks like a good opportunity to include more AI research into the
world of Library Science. Will you be coordinating a repository of
information about this topic so we can read relevant papers or existing
research? Either way, I would love to hear more about this and I would
like to attend the NYC meeting .
Thanks and congrats on the grant.


Nick Critser
Systems Analyst/Programmer
Arthur W. Diamond Law Library
Columbia University
[log in to unmask]
1(212)854 0405
GPG - Fingerprint
6A2C D078 DA48 C336 3FB3 894D 2623 D0E0 843D 4025

On 10/26/2018 11:06 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> The library here at the University of Notre Dame has been awarded a grant from the IMLS on the topic of natural language processing, text mining, and machine learning, and in the end we will be looking for possible partnerships with others who want to exploit these same technologies.
>
> Here is a blurb describing our planning grant:
>
> Investigating the national need for library based topic modeling
> discovery systems [1]
>
> The University of Notre Dame is seeking an IMLS planning grant to
> convene a diverse community during the 2019 calendar year that
> will contribute to conceptualization of digital tools that
> support the creation and dissemination of cross-disciplinary
> research. The grant would enable us to conduct a series of
> workshops as venues for the collaboration of domain experts,
> librarians, and computer science specialists.
>
> The goals are to understand their unique current practices and to
> identify possibilities to use topic modeling and NLP to enhance
> or augment current library classification in order to meet
> current cross-disciplinary research needs. The target community
> includes small and large and public and academic libraries and
> institutions.
>
> To accomplish our goals we will be hosting four regional, day-long meetings in Notre Dame, Palo Alto, New York City, and Washington, DC during the next six to nine months. Each meeting will be attended by: 1) content experts from any number of different domains (political science, economics, history, etc.), 2) computer scientists, 3) and librarians. The meetings will be a combination of show & tell, discussions, and hands-on activities. By the end of each meeting we hope to answer two questions. To what degree do you think things like NLP can be used to better facilitate cross-disciplinary research? And if so, then what set of prioritized features/functions do think are desirable?
>
> We will then write the obligatory white paper, do our best to disseminate the results, and if successful, look for partners who would like to help create the desirable system.
>
> Watch this space for further details, but if you think you might want to participate or have any suggestions, then please do not hesitate to drop me a line.
>
> [1] a complete description of the grant is available from the IMLS - https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-72-18-0221-18
>