The American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC) jointly with

Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) – Armenia invites you to a lecture on

“New Technologies and Methods for the Online Publication of Archival and Museum Collections, and for Integrating them into Studies of History, Social Sciences, and the Humanities”

to be delivered by Dr. Paul Michael Taylor (Smithsonian Institution, USA).

Date:            October 8, 2012

Time:           16:00

Location:     CRRC-Armenia, 52 Abovyan Street, 3rd Floor, Room 305
Language:   English

General Overview: This talk will examine methods currently used to present historical, archeological, and ethnographic information online, in contrast to print publication, considering how new media enhance the presentation of data and interpretation but also present new challenges for scholars in these fields. Examples will include Dr. Taylor’s large online publications of source materials and interpretations of data such as the records of the joint Dutch & American expedition of 1926 to New Guinea (www.sil.si.edu/expeditions/1926); the book and accompanying website about discoveries along the BTC-SCP pipelines from the Caspian to the Mediterranean (www.agt.si.edu); and the expeditions of Chokan Valikhanov as an introduction to Kazakhstan (www.valikhanov.si.edu). Such digitization/publication projects have often arisen through international partnerships, so Dr. Taylor and his research team from the Smithsonian will also briefly outline the Smithsonian’s activities in this area, with information on internships, fellowships, and other potential opportunities for collaborative research.

Short Bio: Paul Taylor, a research anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, is Director of that museum’s Asian Cultural History Program, and serves as Curator of Asian, European, and Middle Eastern Ethnology. He has written numerous books and scholarly articles on the ethnography, ethnobiology, languages, and art (or material culture) of Asia, especially Indonesia. Most recently, he and his co-authors published the books Past and future heritage in the pipelines corridor: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey (Smithsonian, 2011; English/Georgian and English/Azerbaijani editions), and Turkmenistan: Ancient Arts Today (Smithsonian, 2011).

Registration:   If interested in the lecture, please, confirm your attendance via crrcnews@crrc.am or call at 58 13 30, 58 14 50 before October 7, at 17:00, mentioning your name and organizational affiliation. For more information, please see www.arisc.org and https://www.facebook.com/events/125070957640368/

This talk is co-sponsored by the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC), Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) – Armenia, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Embassy of the United States of America in Armenia.