“In the Beginning was the Word” is a Flash animation that visualizes the shifting dynamic of the “page” as historical interface. The project was collaboratively conceived and researched by the History of Reading Working Group and co-authored by William Warner and Kim Knight. The site for the animation includes an introductory essay by William Warner.

On Friday, February 8, Dr. Raymond Siemens gave a talk entitled “Converging Knowledge Domains and the Electronic Book.” This talk was the first Paradigms lecture of 2008 and the third in the overall series.

The video of Dr. Siemens’ talk is now available online for members of the Transliteracies Project.

The video files for the inaugural Paradigms lecture, “Quanta: Knowledge Organization for Interdisciplinary Research” by Rama Hoetzlein, are now available to the general public.

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Established in 2005, the Transliteracies group includes scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and engineering in the University of California system (and in the future other research programs). It will establish working groups to study online reading from different perspectives; bring those groups into conjunction behind a shared technology development initiative; publish research and demonstration software; and train graduate students working at the intersections of the humanistic, social, and technological disciplines. (more…)

Users of today’s digital, networked information spend an increasing amount of time each day “reading” online textual and multimedia materials (for example, email, Web pages). Yet the practices of digital reading in online environments are not well understood according to the protocols of reading that arose in the last two centuries to support the individual, organizational, and social needs of late-literate societies. (more…)

Currently, the Project Group includes University of California scholars. In the future, the group may also include researchers from other universities or affiliated with research programs elsewhere. Project leader: Alan Liu. Members: Kevin C. Almeroth * Bruce Bimber * Sue-Ellen Case * Sharon Daniel * Mark Goble * N. Katherine Hayles * Tobias Höllerer * Yunte Huang * Peter Krapp * George Legrady * Peter Lyman * Mark Meadow * John Mohr * Christopher Newfield * Robert Nideffer * Lisa Parks * Carol Braun Pasternack * Mark Poster * Rita Raley * Ronald E. Rice * Mark Rose * Warren Sack * James Tobias * Matthew Turk * Noah Wardrip-Fruin * William Warner. (Member bios)