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Again, you will find below the description of the CAA Board-sponsored
session on the Art Information Task Force.  We hope all CAA attendees
interested in automated resources for research will be able to
attend.  And we ask those who receive this to inform their
colleagues.
 
Thank you,
 
Deborah Wilde
Project Manager
Getty Art History Information Program
 
------------------- AITFPOST follows --------------------
                   CAA Board-Sponsored Session
                    Friday, 18 February 1994
                           12:30-2:00
                  Rendezvous-Trianon, 3rd floor
                         New York Hilton
 
          Data ex Machina:  How the Art Information Task Force is
          paving the way for research across data highways.
 
     Chairs:             John R. Clarke, University of Texas at
                         Austin
 
                         Eleanor E. Fink, Getty Art History
                         Information Program
 
     Panelists:          Marjorie B. Cohn, Fogg Art Museum,
                         Harvard University
 
                         Suzannah Fabing, Smith College Museum of
                         Art
 
                         Judith Russi Kirshner, University of
                         Illinois at Chicago
 
                         Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Princeton
                         University
 
                         Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Art Institute
                         of Chicago
 
                         Mary Ellen Miller, Yale University
 
                         Jennifer Trant, consultant to the Art
                         Information Task Force
 
                         Deborah N. Wilde, Getty Art History
                         Information Program
 
 
What information do scholars expect to access and exchange if
computer superhighways exist?  How will they use it?
 
The 1990's promise new and compelling opportunities for
cooperation between the humanities and emerging information
technologies.  The development of information superhighways --
electronic networks linking universities, libraries, and other
educational institutions -- will promote nation-wide access to
information heretofore available only locally.  In such a
climate, it is essential that humanities researchers in general,
and art scholars in particular, become active participants in
planning and implementing new information technologies.
 
The CAA, together with the Getty Art History Information Program,
has sponsored the Art Information Task Force for the express
purpose of involving scholars in planning for automation.  As
part of the task force, art scholars are, for the first time,
defining their own research needs for the community at large (not
only for single institutions or collections).  They are
pinpointing what information they seek, and, once stored, how
they would go about retrieving it.  Their efforts will enable
information providers, systems developers and network
administrators to construct appropriate tools for the job --
storage systems, telecommunication pathways, exchange protocols -
- to serve the so-called end-user, the scholar.
 
This Board-Sponsored session invites CAA members to learn about,
and contribute to, this seminal initiative.  A panel of task
force members and outside reviewers will discuss the intellectual
process and issues involved in articulating scholarly research
requirements and respond to questions from the audience.  To
encourage dialogue, examples of actual descriptions will
illustrate the flexibility of the AITF requirements in
accommodating the complexities and nuances of art information.
 
 
          The Art Information Task Force is funded by
          the Getty Art History Information Program and
          by a grant to the College Art Association
          from the National Endowment for the
          Humanities, an independent federal agency.