Our Invited Talks

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Speaker: Michael L. Nelson & Herbert Van de Sompel

Title: D-Lib Magazine pioneered Web-based Scholarly Communication

The web began with a vision of, as stated by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991, “that much academic information should be freely available to anyone”. For many years, the development of the web and the development of digital libraries and other scholarly communications infrastructure proceeded in tandem. A milestone occurred in July, 1995, when the first issue of D-Lib Magazine was published as an online, HTML-only, open access magazine, serving as the focal point for the then emerging digital library research community. In 2017 it ceased publication, in part due to the maturity of the community it served as well as the increasing availability of and competition from eprints, institutional repositories, conferences, social media, and online journals – the very ecosystem that D-Lib Magazine nurtured and enabled. As long-time members of the digital library community and frequent contributors to D-Lib Magazine, we reflect on the many innovations that D-Lib Magazine pioneered and were made possible by the web, including: open access, HTML-only publication and embracing the hypermedia opportunities afforded by HTML, persistent identifiers and stable URLs, rapid publication, and community engagement. Although it ceased publication after 22 years and 265 issues, it remains unchanged on the live web and still provides a benchmark for academic serials and web-based publishing.

 

Bio:

[Nelson: Link]
[Sompel: Link]

Talk Video:

[Youtube: Link]

 

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Speaker: Heike Winschiers-Theophilus

Title: BridgingWorlds: Indigenous Knowledge in the DigitalWorld

The digitalistion of Indigenous knowledge has been challenging considering epistemological differences and the lack of involvement of indigenous people. Drawing from our community projects in Namibia we share approaches of co-designing technologies and digital presentations of indigenous knowledge.

Bio:

Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, is a Professor in the Faculty of Computing and Informatics at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. Her research focuses on co-designing technologies with indigenous and marginalised communities as a means to provide alternative learning ecologies for communities and students; foster socio-economic agency of marginalized; enrich established research paradigms with indigenous and marginal knowledges, promote diversity in education, and generate inclusive tech innovations. Since 2008 she leads the Indigenous Knowledge research cluster consisting of staff members, PhD, Master and Honours students, external international research collaborators, in long-term partnerships with local indigenous communities. The projects have been supported by local and international grants. In 2011 she co-chaired the inaugural Indigenous Knowledge Technology Conference, in Windhoek, initiating a worldwide dialogue on the tensions in digital representation of Indigenous Knowledge. In 2014 she co-chaired the 13th Participatory Design conference in Windhoek, hosted in Africa for the first time. She introduced local design challenges as a novel conference element whereby international participants collaborated with local citizens in designing practical solutions. Concerned with socio-economic challenges in the country, such as the high youth unemployment rate, gender-based violence, reading cultures and general living conditions in the informal settlement, she has established a number of research-based, community outreach, innovation projects contributing to societal transformation. Promoting inclusive innovation, she leads a local tech innovation hub facilitating edtech innovation design with public school learners and the development of virtual reality narratives with indigenous communities. In 2021 she co-chaired and organised the first national indigenous knowledge fair.

Talk Video:

[Youtube: Link]