0.1 Foreword  (Page 2/2)

Those institutional innovations are the “cyberinfrastructure” advocated by the following pages. We aregrateful to the National Science Foundation and to Dan Atkins, who chaired the NSF Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure that issuedin 2003 a report on the subject, for giving the term currency and meaning. (Dr. Atkins also served as an adviser to the ACLSCommission.) In addition to the “Atkins report,” the NSF commissioned a report on the cyberinfrastructure needs of the morequantitative social sciences.

ACLS’s earlier reports focused within the academy and concerned the potential of new information technologiesto empower research on traditional objects of study. That orientation is the starting point for this effort, and the evidencethere is compelling. But the widespread social adoption of computing is transforming the very subjects of humanistic inquiry.In 2006 most expressions of human creativity in the United States—writing, imaging, music—will be “born digital.” Theintensification of computing as a cultural force makes the development of a robust cyberinfrastructure an imperative forscholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Political scientists must take account not only of polling data, but of theblogesphere. Architectural historians must be able to analyze computer-aided design. What we once called “film studies”increasingly will be research on digital media. If these materials are to be preserved and accessible, if they are to be searched andanalyzed, we must have the human and institutional capacities called for in this report.

Many thanks are in order. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided essential resources: the Foundation’s financialsupport made the report possible, and the advice and counsel of Program Officer Donald J. Waters helped refine it. Manyinstitutions extended themselves in providing venues for the public sessions that helped form the report: the New York Public Library;Northwestern University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Southern California; the Research LibrariesGroup; the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Numerous scholarly leaders gave presentations to the Commission, and manyothers submitted comments on earlier drafts of this report. I wish to express thanks also to Abby Smith, who served first as SeniorEditor and subsequently as an adviser to the Commission; to Marlo Welshons, the report’s editor, who worked tirelessly yet cheerfullyto bring together the words and ideas of the report’s many authors and reviewers; and to Sandra Bradley, who helped maintain the Commission’s own infrastructure.

This report addresses its recommendations to college and university leaders, to funders, to scholars, and to thepublic that ultimately supports the scholarly and educational enterprise. It is heartening to know that some of therecommendations of the report already are being acted upon. With the support of the Mellon Foundation, ACLS has begun offeringDigital Innovation Fellowships designed to advance digital scholarship and to exemplify the infrastructure necessary forfurther advances. Chairman Bruce Cole’s announcement of the Digital Humanities Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanitiesis especially promising. One early fruit of that initiative is a new partnership between the Endowment and the Institute for Museumand Library Services to help teachers, scholars, museums, and libraries work together to advance digital scholarship and presentit to the widest possible public. The John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has begun a major new effort to understand anddevelop digital technologies for learning in early education. We can hope that other foundations and funders will join the MellonFoundation in extending that focus to higher education. The ACLS remains committed to continuing its work in this area through thedirect support of scholars and by cooperating with our member societies in hopes of providing leadership in this rapidly changingdomain.

“Commonwealth” is defined both as “a body or number of persons united by a common interest,” and as the “publicwelfare, general good or advantage.” With this report the former meaning, as represented by the Commission and ACLS, presents aframework for action that, we believe, will advance the latter, the general good.

Pauline Yu

President

American Council of Learned Societies