U.S.-Egypt Workshop: The Digital Infomation Infrastructure in the Middle East, and Application to Digital Libraries and Cultural Heritage, January 2006, Alexandria, Egypt

美国-埃及研讨会：中东的数字信息基础设施及其在数字图书馆和文化遗产中的应用，2006 年 1 月，埃及亚历山大

• 批准号: 0549402
• 负责人: Joyce Ray
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institute of Museum and Library Services
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Interagency Agreement
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-10-01 至 2006-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0549402&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: U.S.; Egypt; Workshop; Digital; Infomation

0549402 RayThis project supports a U.S.-Egypt Workshop on the Digital Information Infrastructure in the Middle East and Application to Digital Libraries and Cultural Heritage, to be held in January 2006 in Alexandria, Egypt. The organizers are Dr. Joyce Ray, Associate Deputy Director for Library Services at the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in Washington, DC and Dr. Noha Adly, Information and Communication Director at the Bibliotheca Alexanderina, Alexandria, Egypt. The workshop will involve representatives from the U.S. and Egypt, and participants from other Middle Eastern countries. The workshop has two distinct but related objectives, to elucidate the requirements and mechanisms for building regional information networks and infrastructure, and to develop plans for a Digital Library of the Middle East whose content will focus on the cultural heritage of the Middle East. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a leader in promoting cultural heritage research, will host the workshop as part of its role as an information and research center, demonstrating the importance and utility that information technologies play in building and preserving digital cultural heritage assets.The NSF has in the past decade sponsored numerous activities to strengthen Internet connections among U.S. Research and Education Networks (RENs) and their counterpart RENs in many parts of the world. To date, however, efforts to build such links to the Middle East and Africa have lagged behind. This project brings together countries in the Middle East to compare and formulate strategies for developing national and regional RENs. The workshop will not only help to strengthen collaborative links between U.S. and Middle Eastern scientists working in the cultural heritage disciplines, but will also lay the groundwork for regional and national RENs that will enable a wide range of collaborations between Middle Eastern and U.S. researchers in many science and engineering disciplines. Finally, the outcomes of the workshop should strengthen the position of Middle Eastern researchers in the global mainstream of scientific communication, which now includes sharing of massive amounts of digital content. Rapid advances in technology make it now feasible to create extremely accurate digital facsimiles of a wide variety of cultural heritage materials that capture and in many cases increase the scholarly value of the originals while creating unlimited possibilities for shared use. The workshop will identify and promote new opportunities to collect, organize, and make available through digital technologies materials related to the cultural heritage of a region of almost unparalleled cultural and archaeological riches. The Middle East includes the ancient land of Mesopotamia where some of mankind's great civilizations began, the lands where three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, emerged, and the lands where the first written language, cunieform, appeared about 4500 years ago. The value of cultural artifacts has long been recognized with the unfortunate consequence that important objects and parts of archaeological sites have been transported to different locations around the world. Piecing back together the history of the Middle East will involve the efforts of an international cadre of scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including historians, physical and cultural anthropologists, archeologist and other domain experts working with computer scientists, digital library experts and curators. Bringing together such diverse communities can build new intellectual programs of research and scholarship in the Middle East as well as in the U.S.This project is being supported under the U.S.-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these joint scientific activities. Additional funds have been provided by the Office of International Science and Engineering to ensure that the workshop will have wide participation from Middle East countries.

0549402雷该项目支持将于2006年1月在埃及亚历山大市举行的美国-埃及关于中东数字信息基础设施以及数字图书馆和文化遗产应用的研讨会。组织者是华盛顿特区美国博物馆和图书馆服务研究所(IMLS)图书馆服务副主任乔伊斯·雷博士和埃及亚历山大市亚历山大图书馆的信息和传播主任诺哈·阿德利博士。研讨会将有来自美国和埃及的代表，以及来自其他中东国家的代表参加。讲习班有两个截然不同但相互关联的目标，即阐明建设地区信息网络和基础设施的要求和机制，以及制定中东数字图书馆计划，其内容将侧重于中东文化遗产。亚历山大图书馆是推动文化遗产研究的领导者，它将主办这次研讨会，作为其作为信息和研究中心的一部分，展示信息技术在建立和保护数字文化遗产资产方面发挥的重要性和效用。在过去十年中，美国国家科学基金会赞助了许多活动，以加强美国研究和教育网络(RENS)与世界许多地区对应的RENS之间的互联网连接。然而，到目前为止，建立与中东和非洲的这种联系的努力一直落后。该项目将中东各国聚集在一起，比较和制定发展国家和区域区域可再生能源的战略。研讨会不仅将有助于加强从事文化遗产学科工作的美国和中东科学家之间的合作联系，还将为地区和国家RENS奠定基础，使中东和美国的研究人员能够在许多科学和工程学科开展广泛的合作。最后，研讨会的成果应该会加强中东研究人员在全球科学传播主流中的地位，这现在包括共享大量数字内容。技术的迅速进步使现在可以制作各种文化遗产材料的极其精确的数字复制品，这些复制品捕捉并在许多情况下增加了原件的学术价值，同时为共享创造了无限的可能性。讲习班将确定和促进新的机会，通过数字技术收集、组织和提供与这个拥有几乎无与伦比的文化和考古财富的地区的文化遗产有关的材料。中东包括一些人类伟大文明的发源地美索不达米亚古老的土地，犹太教、基督教和伊斯兰教三大宗教出现的土地，以及大约4500年前第一种书面语言楔形文字出现的土地。文物的价值早已得到承认，但不幸的是，重要文物和部分考古遗址被运送到世界各地的不同地点。回顾中东的历史将需要来自多个学科的国际学者的努力，其中包括历史学家、物理和文化人类学家、考古学家和其他领域的专家，他们与计算机科学家、数字图书馆专家和馆长一起工作。将这些不同的社区聚集在一起，可以在中东和美国建立新的学术研究和学术计划。该项目得到了美国-埃及联合基金计划的支持，该计划为两国的科学家和工程师提供资助，以开展这些联合科学活动。国际科学和工程办公室还提供了额外资金，以确保中东国家广泛参加讲习班。