Digital Lives

Digital Lives conference 10 February 2009

A date for your diaries - although it may seem a long way off!

We have fixed a date and booked the auditorium of the British Library Conference Centre (adjacent to the British Library at St Pancras in London) for the end of project conference on Tuesday 10th February 2009.

We hope to attract an audience of over 100 participants from academia, libraries, archives and museums and others interested in the outcomes and themes of the Digital Lives research project. Further information on the conference programme and speakers will be released in Autumn 2008.

National Training Day for English Literature Research Postgraduates

On Tuesday 30 October, the British Library piloted a new initiative, when more than 150 English Literature research postgraduates from across the UK attended a specially tailored day of talks, workshops and networking opportunities at the St Pancras site. The national training day was held in collaboration with the AHRC National Research Training Scheme in English Language and Literature and the Institute of English Studies, University of London.

The day ended with a panel discussion chaired by author and biographer Anne Sebba entitled, Will new resources and technologies change the way we research in the future? Anne was joined by Gabriella Kazai from Microsoft Research Cambridge, Alison Wheeler from Wikimedia UK,  Adrian Arthur the British Library's Head of Web Services, and myself from the Digital Lives Project. I spoke briefly in the panel about the Digital Lives project and the digital issues likely to impact on future research for the audience. It proved to be a fascinating debate with engaging questions from the audience on the future of digital collections and scholarship.