Why create the Antarctica exhibit?

This project, like most of its kind, was done for a number of reasons. I decided to join my Grandmother on her trip to Antarctica two years ago. At that time, I didn't know anything about the World Wide Web or Mosaic. (Mosaic didn't exist then!) I knew that this would be one of the most special trips of my life, however, and that there would be a lot of demand for information about it from people I knew.

A topic for a prototype exhibit

When I learned about Mosaic, I wanted to learn more about how it worked and how to create HTML documents. I needed an interesting topic for a large project: one that was rich enough to involve many of the needs of a real-life information service and to require the deeper features of HTML and HTTP servers. The Antarctica trip was an obvious choice. Not only would I have a topic for an extensive exhibit, I'd also have a way to tell curious people about the trip without having to explain it all over and over.

The involvement of SILS

But there were other reasons as well. The School of Information and Library Studies was also interested in Mosaic and the World Wide Web as an information service medium. We wished to explore the possibilities of the medium, and to begin developing training for our students in its use. As Manager of Information Technology Services, I felt a responsibility to learn for myself, and to provide a good example of what could be done with the technology.

Our students are taught about the theory of information management and intellectual access, and this requires case studies and laboratory projects. In order to be able to do these, the students need access to data in many forms (images, text, audio, video). Capturing information about the Antarctica trip and making it available digitally creates a new set of data for the students to work with, and I am making the pictures, journal entries, and audio recordings of the trip available to the students of our school (and anyone else in similar activities) for educational use.

A unique information resource at the University

It is clear that in the digital age, with the Internet and the future Information Superhighway bringing information services from all around the world into our reach, the value of libraries and other information storehouses will no longer rest solely in providing local copies of information to local users, but instead will rely heavily on the types of new information that are made available from each site to users all over the world. The Antarctica exhibit also serves as a magnet to draw interest to the University of Michigan and the School of Information and Library Studies, as the providers of this information.

Bringing together Antarctica-related information to raise awareness

In surveying the information that was currently available on Antarctica through the Internet, it became clear to me that there isn't much yet. And what is available isn't provided in a coherent way (organized for intellectual access). This exhibit serves yet another purpose by acting as an organizational tool for the information that is already available, as well as being a new information resource in its own right. The information resources section was added for this purpose, as well as to teach me more about Antarctica before I left. That section is also being added to the University's Clearinghouse of Subject-oriented Internet Resource Guides in order to help people who wish to learn more about Antarctica. I hope that through this effort, there can be a greater awareness of the importance of the Antarctic environment, and a greater sensitivity for the need to preserve the environmental resources of Antarctica.


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