The Institute for the Future of the Book is presenting a paper at the 2005 Computers and Writing Online Conference. Our presentation, entitled “Sorting the Pile: Making Sense of A Networked Archive,” discusses our experience building a networked archive for our Gates Memory Project and the insights it provided regarding the evolution of books in the networked environment.
The conference began on Tuesday, May 31, and runs through Monday, June 13. It is an online conference that is open-access, Creative Commons-licensed, and hosted on a weblog. Drawing upon the conference’s theme of exploring the increasing value of the network and collaborative practices within it, presenters examine the role(s) played by social networking applications and other technologies that are intended to foster social interaction, community, and collaboration. Alongside studying the technologies themselves, presenters will observe and describe the ways that writers and users are engaging the technologies and how such engagement is changing our ideas about writing and teaching writing, and, more broadly, the concepts of rhetoric and composition themselves. We very much hope you’ll get involved by leaving your comments, or, if you prefer, respond on your own weblog and leave a trackback! Or write a response on your wiki! Or tag presentations on your del.icio.us or de.lirio.us list! You get the idea. This conference is meant to be networked.
The presentations are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, and anyone with an account at Kairosnews (registration is free) can leave comments. For more information, visit the CW Online 2005 weblog.