Digital Video and Multimedia Fair To Showcase University's New Media

The annual Harvard Digital Video and Multimedia Fair takes place this year on Thursday, May 7, from 8:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Kennedy School of Government's Taubman Building.

Over the past four years, the fair has drawn together faculty, staff, and students from all of Harvard's schools to share the triumphs and tribulations of working on the cutting edge of new technology. The fair, organized by the Imaging and Visualization Working Group of the University's ABCD Committee -- an informal association of faculty, administrators, researchers, and students -- features a panorama of new media currently used in Harvard's classrooms, laboratories, and offices. Fair events will be followed by an afternoon workshop hosted by the University's Multimedia Infrastructure Project.

The fair's keynote speaker, John B. Howard, director of the Digital Initiative Program at the Harvard College Library, explores this year's theme, "Digital Libraries on the Internet." Presentations by members of the Harvard community include instructional projects in classics, languages, anthropology, and government.

The fair also provides those interested in multimedia an opportunity to view work from more than a dozen student, faculty, and staff developers of multimedia from around the University. Demonstration booths will fill the ground floor and fifth floor of the Taubman Building. Fair organizers are currently soliciting presenters. Student and faculty projects are particularly welcome.

Harvard's Multimedia Infrastructure Project will take center stage at 2:30 p.m. in the Kennedy School's Wiener Auditorium with a discussion of the scope of the project as well as demonstrations of pilot projects from the Medical School, the Graduate School of Design, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Demonstration booths are open from 8:30 a.m. The keynote speech begins at 11 a.m. in Wiener Auditorium with presentations lasting until noon and then continuing from 1 to 2:30 p.m. The Multimedia Infrastructure Project workshop, also in Wiener, runs from 2:30 to 4 p.m.

The Fair is free and open to all members of the Harvard community. Due to limited seating in Weiner, preregistration is encouraged through the Fair Web site at www.harvard.edu/multimedia/, which also carries more details about this year's program. For further information, contact Bijoy Misra at bmisra@fas.harvard.edu.