Over the past two years I've been a part of the so-called Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access; we issued an interim report last December and are now in the final stages of preparing our final report, which should be out within the next month (I will put out an announcement on CNI-announce when this is ready). On April 1, 2010 the Task Force will be hosting a symposium to discuss the report findings. We have some superb speakers lined up. I've included the announcement below. My understanding is that space is very limited, so I'd urge those who want to attend to register early. I'll be doing some summary remarks at the end of the day at the symposium.
Clifford Lynch Director, CNI
Blue Ribbon Task Force to Host Symposium on Economics of Sustaining Digital Information
Government, Industry, Academic Leaders Featured in Public "Conversation" April 1, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (BRTF-SDPA) will hold a one-day symposium convening a diverse group of speakers from the academic, private, and public sectors to discuss one of the most pressing issues of the Information Age: identifying practical solutions to the economic challenges of preserving today's deluge of digital data.
Called "A National Conversation on the Economic Sustainability of Digital Information," the symposium will be held April 1, 2010, at The Fairmont in Washington, D.C. Scheduled to speak is a spectrum of national leaders from the Executive Office of the President, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Museum, Nature Magazine, Google, and other organizations for whom digital information is fundamental for success.
Sessions in the BRTF-SDPA symposium will focus on four key areas of digital information: research data, scholarly discourse, collectively produced Web content such as blogs, and commercially owned cultural content such as movies and music. The symposium is aimed at policy- and decision-makers in the private and public sectors, federal agencies, major libraries and archival institutions, and the general public.
The symposium will also provide a forum for discussion of the
recommendations in the Blue Ribbon Task Force's Final Report on
economically sustainable digital preservation practices, to be issued
in mid-February. When released, the report can be found online at
A preliminary agenda for the BRTF-SDPA symposium and link to
panelists' bios is available at
Participants scheduled to speak at the April 1 BRTF-SDPA symposium in Washington include:
Daniel E. Atkins - Former Director of the National Science Foundation's Office of Cyberinfrastructure
William G. Bowen - President Emeritus, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Wayne Clough - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Thomas Kalil - Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science & Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States (Keynote Speaker)
Timo Hannay - Publishing Director, Nature.com, Nature Publishing Group
Chris Lacinak - Founder and President, Audiovisual Preservation Solutions
Derek Law - Board Chair, JISC Advance
George Oates - Lead, Open Library at Internet Archive
Brian E. C. Schottlaender - The Audrey Geisel University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego
Hal R. Varian - Chief Economist, Google
About the BRTF-SDPA The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access was formed in late 2007 to explore one of the most urgent issues of the Information Age: identifying economically sustainable solutions to the challenges of preserving the ever-growing amount of digitally based data. The Task Force is funded by the National Science Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in partnership with the Library of Congress, the Joint Information Systems Committee of the United Kingdom (JISC), the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), and supported by Task Force member institutions.
Media contact:
Jan Zverina, 858 534-5111 or
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