Architectural History (2006)

Time: Sunday, July 30 (4:30 PM) – Tuesday, August 1, 2006 (2 PM)
Location: University of Virginia, Charlottesville

With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Scholarly Communication Institute (SCI) began in 2003 with the overall goal of providing an opportunity for leaders in scholarly disciplines, academic libraries, advanced technologies, and higher education administration to study, develop, and implement institutional and discipline-based strategies to advance scholarly communication in the context of the ongoing digital revolution. Extended by Mellon for three additional years, SCI 4 builds upon the success of three previous Institutes. SCI 4 will focus on Architectural History beginning in summer 2006.

The field of Architectural History presents several unique opportunities for the design and program of SCI 4. For the past two decades, a number of well-known scholars have been doing creative and innovative scholarship using advanced digital technologies at their institutions. The Society for Architectural Historians (SAH) and other relevant publishers are at a crossroads as they examine their publication programs and plan their digital publishing futures. Early-stage global resources, such as the SAH’s Image Exchange and the ARTstor, show great potential for supporting the research and teaching of architectural historians. The challenges to the field and its supporting technology and resource infrastructure are also great, as practicing architects and designers embrace complex applications such as CAD and historians turn increasingly to data-intensive 3-D visualization techniques and GIS to develop and test interpretive hypotheses.

SCI 4 will be based on the fundamental goal of the Scholarly Communication Institutes: to provide an opportunity for leaders in scholarly disciplines, academic libraries, advanced technologies, and higher education administration to study, develop, and implement institutional and discipline-based strategies to advance scholarship in the context of the ongoing digital revolution.

Specific aims for SCI 4 include:

1. Identify and describe the “grand challenges” facing scholars as they seek to integrate new and emerging technologies into their research and teaching.
2. Explore the development and use of digital information resources and technology in architectural history in concert with the needs of current and future scholars.
3. Explore the impact and implications of new digital information resources and technology on the publication and dissemination of scholarship in architectural history.
4. Create Action Teams to further the work of SCI 4 over the next 18-24 months.
5. Build and maintain a Web-based portal to SCI plans, activities, and outcomes.

To achieve these aims, SCI 4 will assemble nine panels, each bringing an important perspective to the development of these topics. Panels will include scholars, librarians, technologists, publishers, graduate students, and others with relevant expertise and experience.