Different cultures meet (panel session): lessons learned in global digital library development

This panel is organized to share the experience gained and lessons lea rned in developing cutting-edge technology applications and digital libraries when different cultures meet together. “Culture”ù is interpreted in different ways and different context. This include the interdisciplinary collaboration among professionals from different fields with their own cultures -- such as library/information science, computer science, humanities, social sciences, science and technology, etc; to more globally as experienced in major international collaborative projects involving R&D professionals from two or more different cultures -- the East and the West, or the North and the South.

The moderator will share her own personal perspective on the true meaning of global and interdisciplinary collaboration, drawing upon experiences gained in conducting numerous technology related R&D activities throughout the years, starting from her award winning multimedia project on the First Emperor of China1 and his 7000 magnificent terracotta warriors and horses, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the mid-1980s to her recent (since May 2000) and challenging NSFs International Digital Library Project (IDLP) called Chinese Memory Net (CMNet): US-Sino Collaborative Research Toward Global Digital Library, culminating the community building experiences at NIT conferences with many participants of JCDL from over 15 countries at the NIT 2001 in Beijing, China during May 29-31, 2001.

CMNets US affiliates include academic researchers from several universities, including Drexel University, Kent State University, Syracuse University, University of Kentucky, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Its collaborators in Beijing include Peking University and Tsinghua University, in Shanghai include the Shanghai Jiaotong University, and in Taipei including National Taiwan University, National Tsinghua University, and the Academia Sinica. Several collaborato