Prof. Lynne Teather - Faculty of Information - University of Toronto

introduced her project, “Representation
by Design: Architectures of Display in
Museum and Exhibition Practices,” which
focuses on theoretical and historical
aspects of exhibition practice in museums
and international exhibitions, specifically
in Europe and North America throughout
the 20 th and early 21 st centuries. Prof.
Alan Galey gave insight into his analysis
relating textual studies and the design of
digital interface tools in the humanities,
in “Archive and Interface in Digital Textual
Studies: From Cultural History to Critical
Design,” that will specifically investigate
the cultural history of the humanities
Prof. Jennifer carter
archive concentrating on Shakespeare. “If
I were to say merely that their scholarship
is intellectually engaging and the passion
in their voices when they talk about it
riveting, I would be understating the truth
significantly,” said dean seamus ross.
Other participating professors included
Matt ratto, yuri Takhteyev, Jenna
Hartel, Kelly Lyons, steve Hockema,
Aviv shachak, and Matthew Brower.
coNFErENcE MArKs 40TH
ANNiVErsAry oF MusEuM
sTudiEs ProGrAM
U of T’s Master of Museum Studies program
celebrated its 40th anniversary with
a national three-day conference, Taking
Stock: Museum Studies and Museum
Practices in Canada, held April 22-24,
2010, at Hart House. Prof. Jennifer carter
says creating a forum for a nation-wide
debate and critical examination of the
academic discipline of museum studies
in Canada in historical and contemporary
contexts was important. Taking Stock
addressed how the field registers within
broader global traditions, pedagogies,
and practices. The conference’s keynote
address, given by museum consultant,
theorist, and writer, dr. robert r. Janes,
provided provocative
and useful insights
into how key intellectual
and civic resources
of our contemporary
cultural landscape can
be socially relevant
institutions in this era
of profound social
and environmental
change. Conference
delegates and diverse
communities of
practice, ranging from
museum researchers
and academics
to professionals
and policy makers,
addressed themes related to civil society,
sustainability, exhibition pedagogy,
management, and curatorship. Prof.
Lynne Teather says that despite what
some people might think about the digital
world abandoning the traditional world
of libraries and museums, “the opposite
is happening; there are just more
museums growing and growing. They will
continue to be a grassroots phenomenon
W. h. Bayley, chairman of the museology
Department and assistant to the Director
(seated), and Jo cruise, Secretary. taken
in mr. Bayley’s office at the royal ontario
museum, 1973, home of the museum
Studies program in its early years.
in Canada, but they are becoming more
and more a serious economic tool,
significant as corporate places. That is a
little scary for me because I would like to
see them remain publicly driven spaces
that continually engage the sociopolitical
context. We need to understand that it
isn’t just about ‘traditional’ in big museums
— it’s about a shared museum.
That’s the Canadian way.”
21sT AcM coNFErENcE oN HyPErTExT ANd HyPErMEdiA
The iSchool hosted the opening reception for the 21 st ACM (Association for
Computing Machinery) Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, held
at victoria College from June 13 to 16. The next day, keynote speaker,
Prof. Andrew dillon, University of Texas School of Information, stated: “People
need to think more about the method of communicating, sharing, and writing
when using technology.” A leading researcher on electronic text, Prof. Dillon
discussed how perceptual and cognitive factors influence readability and
scanability of online information.
While he says much remains to be determined on improving designs of
hypertext structures for human use, a major gap remains in our understanding
of learning, comprehension, and the impact of textual representation, form,
organization and construction on human response. Technological
advances have led to the largest changes in the way we
communicate, Prof. Dillon contends. But the problem lies in
losing sight of what we’re trying to accomplish: while hypertext
gives people the ability to see what others are sharing,
we cannot assume we are learning better just because we are
using the latest technology, he said. He added that we have
become a nation of “search and retrieval,” in
our goal of finding information. As a result,
people simply scan a site and don’t read it in
its entirety, not allowing themselves to “find the
true meaning of the document.”
informed | autumn 2010 9