Dr Paul Turnbull is a Senior Research Felllow in the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at the Australian National University.

Title: A New Foreign Country: The Challenges and Risks of Making History in Digital Media for Historians and Librarians.

Abstract: As networked digital media transform patterns of communication, new virtual audiences are emerging wanting historical information through the world-wide web.

If historians are to satisfy this audience, they will need to move beyond the familiar realm print-culture. They will also need to use digital media to engage a readership that is accustomed to wanting information resources in forms that allow more active participation in understanding the past than history in print media allow.

The challenge for historians will be how to create history in interactive digital media that engages and informs readers without sacrificing the scholarly aims and procedures they have slowly evolved and traditionally communicated through the medium of print.

In my paper, I will discuss the evolution of the South Seas Digital History Project, and how I see the aspirations of historians might best be translated into digital media My argument in part is that the success with which history evolves in the virtual landscape will depend greatly on how well historians interact with librarians and information science specialists creating digital libraries. Indeed, there are compelling grounds for them exploring this new foreign country together, open to the prospect that the adventure may redefine their respective professional aims, practices and contributions to the sphere of public culture.

Paper