EDINA newsline
September 2011: Volume 16 Issue 3
The INSPIRE 2011 Conference took place in Edinburgh, from 27 June to 1 July 2011.
INSPIRE is an EU Directive that is setting up an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community policies and activities that may have an impact on the environment: inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
One of many relevant points taken from an INSPIRE Conference plenary session was from Dr Gesche Schmid, GI Policy Lead for the Local Government Association (www.lga.gov.uk): how the integration of infrastructure, technology and GIS improves efficiency and allows local governments to target resources and save money. It is also a core component that would allow local government to improve access to knowledge to help informed decision-making.
This and other key issues presented at the INSPIRE Conference can be found as write-up blogs from EDINA staff on GoGeo, and the INSPIRE Conference’s programme presentations are now available.
The 4th Repository Fringe event took place in the Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh on 3-5 August. The theme for this year’s event was “Building Bridges and Social Innovation”, and in keeping with previous years offered a range of pecha kucha and formal presentations, and round table discussions.
In front of a record number of delegates (c.110), the opening keynote this year was given by Eloy Rodrigues (Director of the University of Minho Documentation Services), who presented on repository hosting and portal initiatives in Portugal. The closing keynote by Gary Hall (Professor of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University), who showcased radical open initiatives in the humanities including liquid books, open humanities press, media gifts, and P2P pirate philosophy!
This year also included for the first time a “hackathon” supported by the JISC-funded DevCSI project where, in answer to a range of challenges, developers produced a working prototype with awards going to those judged most innovative and useful.
Repository Fringe also hosted a well attended all day CETIS workshop on Friday 5 August.
A major Scottish folklore website was formally launched at a conference in Edinburgh on 23-24 June 2011.
The Carmichael Watson project digitised a special collection in Edinburgh University Library, of the papers from the pioneering folklorist Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912).
The conference celebrating Carmichael’s work marked the completion of the most recent phase of the project and formal launch of the website.
A keynote speaker was Peter Burnhill, director of EDINA, who gave a presentation outlining EDINA’s involvement.
EDINA designed and developed the website to showcase the papers and related materials, in liaison with the Centre for Research Collections (CRC) at the University of Edinburgh, and with project funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council.