ABSTRACT
Jeffrey Schnapp presented on Harvard University MetaLab’s Livebrary. The Livebrary is a data visualization appliance that exposes the multilayered life of the Harvard Library System in real time through a set of visualizations delivered on a large touchscreen. The touchscreen allows library users to explore what is happening system-wide on a variety of scales: data flows, traffic patterns, emerging search and discovery patterns, and more.
BIO
Jeffrey Schnapp is a cultural historian who works in the digital humanities and on digital approaches to cultural programming. He is a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and Comparative Literature, a teaching faculty member at the Graduate School of Design, and the faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard. Before moving to Harvard in 2011, Schnapp occupied the Pierotti Chair of Italian Studies at Stanford, where he founded the Stanford Humanities Lab. His most recent books are Speed Limits and The Electric Information Age Book (a collaboration with the designer Adam Michaels of Project Projects)(Princeton Architectural Press, January 2012). Also forthcoming in 2012 are Digital_Humanities (MIT Press) a book co-written with Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, and Todd Presner; Modernitalia (Peter Lang), a collection of essays on 20th century Italian cultural history being edited by Francesca Santovetti, and Italiamerica (Il Saggiatore), vol. 2, co-edited with Emanuela Scarpellini.
In 2011, Jeffrey created a class in collaboration with John Palfrey on the past, present, and future of the library. From the class, the Library Test Kitchen was born. The project will continue to grow as the 21st century library continues to grow. Here is a modest broadsheet documenting the early work of the Library Test Kitchen : Library Test Kitchen Newspaper