Virtual Volumes?:
Investigating Students’ Interactions with Rare Books
Thursday, September 14, 2017
4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Trexler Library, Level A Concourse
Trexler Library welcomes 2017 Alumni Achievement Award winner Dr. Diane H. Sonnenwald ’76 to speak about her research into human-rare book interaction and its implications for virtual and augmented reality technologies.
Rare historic books and manuscripts provide unique insights into historic events, as well as everyday life, art, literature and culture across time and geographic locations. It is important to allow individuals access to rare books so they can experience their craftsmanship and learn from them, expanding their appreciation and understanding of the past, and with this knowledge expand their participation in contemporary society. This talk will present research investigating human-rare historic book interaction in order to develop technology requirements for virtual reality renderings of rare books that enable integrated haptic, audio, olfactory, visual and cognitive human-rare book interaction.
Diane H. Sonnenwald is Emerita Professor and Chair, School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland. She has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor and Endowed Chair at the Graduate Institute of Library and Information Studies, National Taiwan Normal University, and an Adjunct Professor in Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining academia, she worked at Bell Communications Research and Bell Laboratories. She has a Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
In 2011-2012 Diane served as President of the Association of Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). She was recently awarded a 2017 Muhlenberg College Alumni Achievement Award and the 2016 ASIS&T Watson Davis Award. Other awards include the 2014 Elfreda A. Chatman Research Award, the 2013 ASIS&T Lecture Series Award, a Fulbright Professorship, U.S. Army Research Laboratory Scientific Contribution Award, University of North Carolina Junior Faculty Research Award, ALISE Research Methodology Best Paper Award, and Bell Communications Research Award of Excellence.
Diane’s research focuses on human information behaviour in a variety of contexts, interdisciplinary collaboration, and evaluation of emerging and future technology. Diane has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. Her latest edited book, Theory Development in the Information Sciences, is published by the University of Texas Press.
This lecture is open to members of the Muhlenberg Community and the public. Refreshments will be served. The event is co-sponsored by Muhlenberg College Alumni Affairs. For more information contact Susan Falciani / 484.664.3694.
