The Access Grid in Collaborative Arts and Humanities Research

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If the AG is used by scholars in a way that reflects existing methods of sharing materials and enhancing discussion, then the results are inevitably bound to be the same as those produced by other forms of scholarly interaction. If an AG session is structured like a conventional seminar, it should be no surprise if it produces similar outcomes to a good seminar. This is apparent in the way in which the first Sheffield Workshop on Digital Images was organised. Most of the participants simply had PowerPoint presentations showing images of manuscripts and other materials. As noted above, the Virtual Vellum package offered greater interactivity than PowerPoint. However, the concept of Virtual Vellum as it stands is still very much shaped by existing methods of displaying digital images of manuscripts. Users select one or two images at a time from a selection of thumbnails. The result remains the kind of 'show-and-tell' approach familiar from PowerPoint. Yet the AG is capable of much more. A tiled wall, could potentially display an entire manuscript or printed book at once, in various configurations which participants in the session could alter. This would give a completely new perception of the structure and character of the manuscript, one which it would be difficult to achieve even with the actual manuscript physically present. A constant problem for scholars using manuscripts, printed materials and even physical objects is that different parts of them are scattered in different places. Projects to reunite images of these dispersed collections and objects tend to be demanding, complex and expensive. Could the same results be achieved more quickly and interestingly on the AG? Perhaps one might even envisage manuscript scholars interacting with the avatar of a lost or dispersed manuscript in the same way that a dancer can interact with a virtual partner.