Roundtable Discussion on Emerging Technology Trends and the Library of Congress
October 21, 2008 -- Representatives from the Library of Congress met with leading private and academic sector experts in emerging technology and digital storage trends on September 10-12, 2008 in Pasadena, California.
The roundtable discussion focused on a big picture question: What technological changes are in the future for the Library as a provider of information services? The Library provides and cares for over 130 million books, maps, manuscripts, sound recordings, movies, television broadcasts, prints, and photographs. It also manages over 200 terabytes of digital information. At the same time technologies for generating, storing, and searching digital information are evolving rapidly, and the Library is facing new digital stewardship challenges.
Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives Laura Campbell, National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program Director of Program Management Martha Anderson, and Information Technology Specialist Jane Mandelbaum discussed the Library’s current strategy for the physical storage of digital collections. They also talked about stewardship concerns for digital cultural heritage materials and issues surrounding the search and navigation of content presented on the Web.
The invited experts identified emerging technology and trends across all aspects of society and emphasized the growing complexity of the Web environment that influences the collection, management and service of digital content. The Library also received useful advice about developing access interfaces to diverse content such as images, text, geospatial data and Web archives.
