Setting up and exploiting humanities research resources on the World Wide Web

Michael Greenhalgh - Professor of Art History, Australian National University

ABSTRACT The paper takes as its starting-point the idea that a research computer needs to have a network connection, and then attempts to separate the hysteria and hype of this overheated industry from the facts about what computers can really do for research in the humanities, including their ability to handle various media. It makes little distinction between discipline areas (data, to a computer, are just data), or between levels of research interest (from school students to senior academics), and it takes email for granted, concentrating instead on the recent and increasing explosion of the Internet and the availability of tools to access, use and provide materials for it. Illustrative examples are chosed world-wide, but particular attention is paid to the work in the Department of Art History at the Australian National University, where text and image data are generated and mounted in large quantities for display over the Web as learning materials for all levels.

One area it conspicuously does not deal with is the publication of research materials on CD-ROM (even though these can frequently be used over a network), because the cost of such publications can be higher than individuals might be able to afford. Comments are offered on the issue of whether libraries are the correct places to manage and organisee the use of electronic media, and on the dilemma presented by the developing struggle over the ownership of intellectual property in digital learning materials. The paper ends with predictions, many of them gloomy, for the consequences of the penetration of electronic learning material in the higher education arena.

The paper is derived from Creative Investigations: Redefining Research in the Arts and Humanities Symposium, sponsored by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and held in Canberra on 8-9 November 1995.