Technology, Scholarship, and the Humanities:
The Implications of Electronic Information
Descriptions of the Sponsoring Organizations
The Getty Art History Information Program
The Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), one of seven operating programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust, seeks to make art-historical information more accessible to scholars and researchers through advanced computer technology. It does so by promoting common perspectives and standards among international institutions and organizations on projects in four general areas: coordinating vocabularies to facilitate consistent data entry and retrieval; providing bibliographic services; assembling art-historical databases; and conducting research to help define automation directions for art information. AHIP plays a catalytic role in helping to focus attention on the collective changes facing the information community in this decade and beyond. Among AHIP's numerous projects are the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the Bibliography of the History of Art, the Provenance Index, and the Art Information Task Force.
The American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a private nonprofit federation of 52 national scholarly organizations. The purpose of the Council, as set forth in its constitution, is "the advancement of humanistic studies and the maintenance and strengthening of relations among the national societies devoted to such studies." Included in the program of the Council are awards to individual scholars to advance research in the humanities and humanistic aspects of the social sciences; support for international scholarly research and exchanges; activities concerned with the identification of present and future needs of humanistic scholarship, and planning and development to meet these needs; and organizational functions. In addition, the Council has fiscal and adminstrative oversight for the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the Fulbright program.Organized in 1919 and incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1924, the ACLS was granted a federal charter through the United States Congress in 1982.
The Coalition for Networked Information
The Coalition for Networked Information was founded in March 1990 to help realize the promise of advanced networks and high-performance computing for information access and delivery. The Coalition was established by three associations: The Association for Research Libraries (ARL), CAUSE, and EDUCOM. ARL is an association promoting equitable access and effective use of recorded knowledge supporting teaching, research, and scholarship. CAUSE and EDUCOM are dedicated to introducing, using, and managing information technology and related resources in research in general and higher education. The Coalition for Networked Information promotes the creation of access to information resources in networked environments in order to enrich scholarship and enhance intellectual productivity.A Task Force of institutions and organizations able and willing to contribute resources and attention to the mission of the Coalition was created in 1990 and continues to grow. This Task Force now provides a common vehicle by which over 200 institutions and organizations pursue a shared vision of information management and how it must change in the 1990s to meet the social, educational, and economic opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. Members of the Task Force include higher education institutions, publishers, network service providers, computer hardware, software, and systems companies, library networks and organizations, and public and state libraries.
Council on Library Resources
The Council on Library Resources was founded in 1956 with support from the Ford Foundation to aid in the solution of the problems of libraries generally, and research libraries particularly, by putting emerging technologies to use in order to improve operating performance and expand library services. While continuing its initial concentration on technological applications in libraries, the Council had gradually expanded its focus to reflect changing needs and opportunities in areas such as linking computer systems, making library management more effective, improving access to library materials, addressing international concerns, exploring cooperative approaches, and enhancing the skills of librarians. The Council now derives its support from a number of foundations in areas consonant with their program interests. The areas currently receiving attention include human resources, the economics of information services, infrastructure, and access and processing.
The Research Libraries Group, Inc.
The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) is a not-for-profit membership corporation of more than 120 universities, archives, historical societies, museums, and other institutions devoted to improving access to information that supports research and learning. RLG owns and operates RLIN(r) (the Research Libraries Information Network) to serve the research and information management needs of both its members and nonmember institutions and individuals worldwideRLG's objectives for the 1990s include:
- to support cooperative solutions among research libraries, archives,
museums, and related repositories;
- to create an information delivery service capable of putting catalog,
index, abstract, full-text and image information directly into the hands
of scholars and students;
- to manage coordinated preservation projects that extend models developed
for the preservation of brittle paper materials to photographs and
electronic media;
- to develop a local computer system serving archives, museums, and related
repositories, linked to an increasingly comprehensive database of primary
cultural and scientific information; and
- to facilitate the most effective access to information resources.
