This is part one of a two-part interview with the organizers of “Capacity Assessment of Latin American and Caribbean Partners: A Symposium about Open-Access, Technological Needs, and Institutional Sustainability,” which took place virtually April 16-17, 2020. Part two will be published tomorrow, July 14. In this piece, Nicole Kang Ferraiolo, CLIR’s Director of Global...
—Charles Henry This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that for the heart of the matter is here and the crux of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were...
This spring, CLIR established a new Informatics, Cultural Networks, and Knowledge Systems division. Chief Operating Officer Amy Lucko discusses the thinking behind the division’s creation and its role within CLIR. What sparked the idea to create the Informatics, Cultural Networks, and Knowledge Systems division? In many respects the formal creation of this division...
—Charles Henry Of late we have been understandably immersed in the current moment. The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in our lifetime, a disruptive force that is unnerving in that it is both inexorable and unpredictable, a silent threat that becomes visible only through the consequence of its often-lethal abrading, physically and psychologically, of our...
Justin D. Shanks Around the world, libraries and archives are spaces for the collection and preservation of as well as access to important cultural heritage materials. It is this final point—access—that has long captured my attention as a library-based science and technology studies (STS) practitioner scholar. Finding methods and mediums to make collections and...
—Abby Smith Rumsey CLIR’s Material Memory podcast series explores ways in which collective memory and the organizations entrusted with its stewardship are experiencing the disruptions of rapid technical innovation, accelerating climate change, armed conflict, mass movements of population, political and legal regimes that hamper access to culture, and the unintended ravages of simple neglect....
—By Emily Beagle I recently returned from a two-week expedition to the Arctic as part of the ClimateForce 2019 Team. This team consisted of 87 people from 25 countries who are all united in their commitment to combat climate change. The expedition was led by Sir Robert Swan, the first person to walk to...
By Nicole Kang Ferraiolo and Jodi Reeves Eyre Humans are at the heart of the climate crisis. We are by no means the only species or entities that will face its dire effects, but our current geological age is called the Anthropocene for a reason. We caused this crisis, we will suffer its consequences,...
—Charles Henry Several months ago, I wrote a blog on two areas of emerging interest to CLIR: human rights and climate disruption. This post addresses the reasons for our focusing on climate disruption as a natural extension of CLIR’s decades-long mission to preserve and make accessible our cultural heritage. A Commitment to Preservation When...
—By Alberto Campagnolo As a trained book conservator, I enjoy a deep and intimate knowledge of (and relationship with!) books as working objects. Even though books have taken many forms over the centuries—the scroll being the most important book form in antiquity—today’s quintessential format is the codex. A codex is a collection of sheets...
I have just started reading Donna Haraway’s Staying with The Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Haraway uses the term “Chthulucene” to describe our current era: “Chthulucene is a simple word. It is a compound of two Greek roots (khthôn and kainos) that together name a kind of timeplace for learning to stay with the...
—By Charles Henry My first impression of Pat Battin: how extraordinary her writing. Elegant and candid, weaving apt metaphors and at times colloquial interjections that enlivened an otherwise formal expression, she was for me instantly persuasive. Working within an academic culture that valued sharp articulation but often succumbed to clausal pile-ons and obscure phrasing...