November 20 (sun.) Panel 1: Invited Speakers

Kōji Tanabe（Chair, Kyoto Culture Association (NPO)）

The Development of the Kyoto Digital Archives

1. The Past 10 Years of the Kyoto Digital Archive
2. Cooperative Projects with Foreign Museums
3. Applications of High-Resolution Facsimiles of Cultural Assets and Their Future

     I will present on the history of the unique digital archive projects that were initiated by the city of Kyoto and have now been passed on to the Kyoto Culture Association. During the six years that it was led by the city of Kyoto and other organizations such as the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry, The Digital Archive Project established pioneering digital archives beyond what any other local government had accomplished, under its motto, “save, connect, and apply.” The project’s history includes three years of activities by the Kyoto Digital Archive Promotion Association from its establishment in 1998 until its dissolution in 2001, and another three years of activities by the Kyoto Digital Archives Research Center from its establishment in the same year until its dissolution in 2004. The project’s crown jewel achievement is the Digital Archive of the National Treasure, Nijō Castle. Influenced by this project, many for-profit and non-profit organizations started their own unique digital archives, and created new industries and fields. Today, I would like to report on the activities of the Kyoto Culture Association in an effort to “learn” and “teach” about the existence of our cultural inheritance and its value, as well as to discuss these matters with our participants today.

5.ABSTRACTS | by koho | MORE INFO | [EDIT]

November 20 (sun.) Panel 2: Invited Speakers

Neil Fraistat / University of Maryland

Digital Humanities Centers and The New Humanities

      What is the function of the digital humanities center within a rapidly changing humanities landscape? Although they have a great capacity for focusing, maximizing, and networking local knowledge, local resources, and local communities of practice, digital humanities centers are also at risk of being silos, overly focused on their home institutions, rarely collaborating with other centers, and unable to address by themselves the larger problems of the field. They also siphon off grant funding from schools unable to afford a digital humanities center of their own and can make it harder for scholars at such places to participate in the larger projects that help to shape the possibilities and future of the field. Are digital humanities centers crucial to the future of the field, or deleterious to it? Or to point the question more finely: in what ways and under what circumstances might digital humanities centers be seen as more crucial to the field than deleterious? I’ll be discussing these issues especially in terms of the centerNet initiative, which seeks to create a truly global network of local digital humanities centers.

5.ABSTRACTS | by koho | MORE INFO | [EDIT]

November 20 (sun.) Panel 2: Invited Speakers

Jieh Hsiang / National Taiwan University

Digital Humanities in Asia Pacific – a Progress Report

      Although still in an early stage of development, digital humanities has made tremendous stride in Asia Pacific in recent years. The countries in this region, with their tremendous diversities in culture, language, history, and social and economic structure, have each developed its own unique path to digital humanities.
      At the same time, however, there are issues and challenges that are common to all. In this talk we will give an overview of some of the current activities in Asia Pacific countries.
      We will explore, to the best of our knowledge, their commonalities and differences, and will discuss how to overcome some of the problems together through an international organization such as the CenterNet.

5.ABSTRACTS | by koho | MORE INFO | [EDIT]