De Lange Conference VI
Emerging Libraries
Date: March 5-7, 2007
Host: Rice University via the Fondren Library and Computer and Information
Technology Institute (CITI)
Site: Alice Pratt Brown Auditorium, Shepherd School, Rice University, 6100
Main St., Houston, Texas
Rice University's
2007 De Lange Conference Aims to Describe How Knowledge Will Be Accessed,
Discovered, and Disseminated in the Age of Digital Information
Speakers will
include John Seely Brown, Harold Varmus, James Duderstadt, Paul Ginsparg, and
Donald Kennedy.
The traditional concept of a library
has been rendered obsolescent by the unprecedented confluence of the Internet,
changes in scholarly publication models, increasing alliances between the
humanities and the sciences, and the rise of large-scale digital library
projects. The old ways of organizing and preserving knowledge to transmit our
cultural and intellectual heritage have converged with the most advanced
technologies of science and engineering and research methodologies. Such rapid
and overwhelming changes to a millennia-old tradition pose significant
challenges not only to university research libraries but to every citizen. If
the traditional library is undergoing a profound metamorphosis, it is not clear
what new model will take its place. More information has been produced in the
last several years than in the entire previous history of humanity, and most of
this has been in digital format. Libraries are not storage places any more;
they are less and less a place. The critical issues now include: How can that
information be efficiently accessed and used? How do we extract knowledge from
such an abundance of often poorly organized information? How might these
enormous digital resources affect our concept of identity, our privacy, and the
way we conduct business in the new century? Insight from many disciplines and
perspectives is requisite to begin to understand this phenomenon to identify
ways to help chart a future course.
The De Lange 2007 Conference will
examine the transformational influences these astonishing emerging libraries
may entail. A planning committee, led by Rice University's Fondren Library and
Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI), now seeks a rich mix of
subject specialists with unique perspectives who will enliven and enrich this
exploration. The De Lange Conference will also have a historical perspective as
well as be forward-looking and self-reflective; the conference will reveal that
the emerging library is of enormous consequence and relevant to the rethinking
of fundamental assumptions that structure our understanding of the world and
facilitate new discovery.
The following topics will be
addressed by some of the world's foremost thinkers:
For more detailed information about the speakers and program, see http://delange.rice.edu/conferenceVI.cfm
Charles Henry,Ph.D.
Vice Provost and University Librarian
Rice University
P.O. 1892
Houston, Texas 77251-1892
voice: 713.348-4022
fax: 713.348-5258