Imagining the Futures of Search

An evening with Douglas W. Oard from the University of Maryland (USA)

For decades before Web search engines emerged on the scene, research labs around the world were developing the core technology of “ranked retrieval” that now forms the pervasive basis for many end-user search applications. For decades before Google Book Search threatened to reshape the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, research labs around the world were creating the imaging, OCR, and search technologies that came together in that system. This evening, we will peek into those same research labs to see what’s going on there today that may again shake up our world.

We have but one past and but one present, but there are many possible futures. Tonight, we’ll briefly glimpse three: ubiquitous search of foreign-language content, support for search and sense-making in conversational media such as speech and email, and what could happen when and if our machines start “reading” our documents and our documents start “reading” each other. How might our profession, and our society at large, adapt to best balance the costs and the potential benefits that these innovations would bring? And how might we, as a profession, and as a society, help to shape the ways in which these new technologies actually develop? It will be an evening with more questions than answers, as is appropriate for an organisation whose very name is Libraries, Technology and the Future.

Speaker:

Doug Oard is an American library educator and technologist who is in Melbourne this summer and autumn for a sabbatical visit at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. At the University of Maryland, College Park, he holds joint appointments in the College of Information Studies (Maryland’s iSchool) and in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. Doug is in many ways an unrepentant engineer, with three degrees (Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D.) in Electrical Engineering, but in other ways he is one of us (having, for example, recently served as Associate Dean for Research at Maryland’s iSchool). You can read a bit about his work at http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~oard/.

FREE ENTRY

Not a VALA member? Visitors are welcome at VALA meetings - just come!

VENUE: Tutorial Room, Ground Floor, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne, Melways Map X871 I6. (On-site parking available after 5.00 p.m. – have gold coins available for the parking fee. Public transport via tram.)

DATE & TIME: Wednesday 26 May 2010

Drinks and refreshments from 5:30 pm with presentation commencing at 6:00 pm.

Contact: VALA Executive Officer This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Want to join Committee and the speaker for dinner (your expense) afterwards?

Dinner RSVPs only by 5.00 p.m. Monday 24 May: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (03) 9725 2725

See also the topics covered by previous VALA General Meetings