Workshop on the Future of Cuneiform Studies

"With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, partners of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative are working together to organize an invitational workshop on “Perspectives for Future Research in Cuneiform Studies.” The two-day workshop will be held at the University of California, Los Angeles, on November 4-5 (Sunday and Monday), 2007. Representatives of academia, information technology, and cultural heritage management will explore the various technical, research, and cultural heritage issues affecting cuneiform studies as it transitions into the growing information technology revolution. The overall objective of the conference will be to examine issues that affect each area from a collective perspective of preserving culture. The considertions guiding our conversations will be: i) What are the overriding concerns of researchers and educators in cuneiform studies for the next decades? ii) What is the anticipated future impact on cuneiform studies of the digitization of large blocks of text archives, and of the implementation of information technology standards and applications designed to facility cuneiform research? iii) What strategies should the field pursue to insure that it takes full advantage of the new means of knowledge distribution that will inevitably replace traditional paper publica-tions? iv) What role will researchers in cuneiform play vis-a-vis cultural heritage preservation and management in museums that are now writing new access policies for their collec-tions, and in the face of a very unstable situation in the Middle East? The expected outcomes of the conference are the creation of a road map for the future that outlines and prioritizes the pressing issues in the future of cuneiform studies, as well as the development of new networks of cuneiform and museum curator professionals. "