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Canadian Librarian and Archivist Ian Wilson to Discuss Digitization and Cultural Identity

October 20, 2008

Ian Wilson, librarian and archivist of Canada, will give the Fall 2008 Windsor Lecture at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science on October 31, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. The title of his talk is "Digital History: Revolution or Revelation?" A reception will follow the lecture.

It is vitally important to have reliable guides to select and organize the massive volume of information now available to us: a role assumed by librarians, archivists, and information professionals. Wilson contends that the ways in which this information is identified and communicated, coupled with the globalization of information, have a direct effect on the way our cultural identity is shaped.

Using language as one key aspect of cultural identity, Wilson will discuss the example of how librarians in Nunavut are working to make information available in Inuktitut, linking information, identity, and the role of libraries and archives. He will also discuss the role of integration in cultural identity—and how the merger of the library and the archives has permitted the collective imagination (identity) of a nation to be preserved.

The Web and new technologies used by libraries and archives allow us to tell stories to a twenty-first century audience and create meaning from various media, especially with the current trend towards a more oral, verbal culture. Wilson asserts that we can find new ways to reach out to citizens, to re-package the stories that contain the elements of our cultural identity. One of the most important ways we do this is by digitizing content, another knowledge activity that affects cultural identity. Wilson will describe the importance of the Canadian Digital Information Strategy and the Canada Project, showing how Canadians' approach to their history, and their self-knowledge as a country, has changed dramatically.

Wilson will also speak about the place of history in the age of Wikipedia and Facebook, and the role of history in cultural identity. According to Wilson, the participatory nature of knowledge in the twenty-first century is a result of the shifts from oral to written culture, and now written to Web culture, affecting the ways we think and learn. He will conclude with thoughts on how knowledge organizations can tap into this rich intellectual springboard as well as with his projections into the future for libraries and archives.

The Phineas L. Windsor Lectureship honors the career of Dr. Windsor, who was Director of the University of Illinois Library and the Library School from 1909 to 1940. The initial lecture was given in 1949 by John T. Winterich titled "Three Lantern Slides: Books, The Book Trade, and Some Related Phenomena in America, 1876, 1901, and 1926." Gifts from alumni and friends built the fund when Dr. Windsor retired. In 2004 Marian ('50 BA Science and Letters) and Arnold ('50 BS Architectural Studies) Thompson made a gift to this Fund. Marian is a Windsor granddaughter.

TIME: Lecture begins at 4:00 p.m. A reception will follow the lecture.

LOCATION: The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Room 126, 501 East Daniel, Champaign

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