THE 2008 WEBWISE CONFERENCE

The 2008 WebWise Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World took place March 6-7 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida, with a day of pre-conference workshops on
March 5. The theme for this year's conference is
"WebWise 2.0: The Power of Community."

Participating speakers and demonstrated projects are unified by the concept of Web 2.0 as it relates to the development of technological and digital resources among and between libraries and museums. Based on a participative platform between users and user-interfacing applications, the concept of Web 2.0 leverages collective intelligence by encouraging a collaborative approach to the creation of content, its design patterns, and its evaluation. With museums and libraries long considered centers of community engagement, the 2008 WebWise Conference explores how such institutions can utilize the new Web 2.0 "architecture of participation," in terms of preservation and access to museum and library collections.

Keynote speakers are
Jonathan Fanton, president of the
MacArthur Foundation
and
Jeffrey Schnapp, founding director of the
Stanford Humanities Lab.

The 2008 WebWise Conference was co-sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS),

The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (The Wolfsonian-FIU), and

The National Endowment for the Humanities.

The WebWise Conference is considered to be a premier forum for nationally recognized experts to demonstrate and discuss the growing convergence between the practices and needs of libraries and museums in collection and information management.