This message is being resent to CAAH, AIA-L, ARLIS-L, MUSEUM-L, and VRA-L because the session description was not included with the first message. 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.