I Annotate: A Workshop.
After two decades of progress in infrastructure and web technologies, we believe the time is finally at hand to realize the widespread annotation of human knowledge. On a recent call a suggestion was made to bring together people building annotation solutions with those that ultimately will use them. The obvious sensibility of that idea led a number of us to approach the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding for a workshop, which they approved several weeks ago. We’re calling it I Annotate, and it will be April 10-12, here in San Francisco, at the Fort Mason Center.
We’ve put together a website at iannotate.org, and have a draft agenda and a list of confirmed and tentative attendees. We’re thrilled that there has already been considerable interest from key individuals in the open knowledge community.
In organizing this workshop, we see an opportunity to bring technologists and early adopters together with those that have a curiosity and ultimately a stake in the adoption of annotation platforms and practices –from organizations such as journals, publishers, libraries and encyclopedias, to end users including scholars, scientists, journalists and public servants. Our goal is for participants to share the current status of technologies and standards efforts, what we collectively imagine for the future, and to identify and prioritize the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
The first two days will feature updates and demonstrations from technology developers on what’s being built as well as presentations on how annotation is being deployed and used in a diversity of different domains. We’ll also include a healthy portion of unconference-style participant-driven sessions.
The last optional day will be dedicated to hands-on technical implementation and Q&A between developers and those curious about incorporating annotation into their offerings and thinking moving forward.
We’ll video all the presentations, and hope to also be able to stream the event live for those who are unable to attend in person.
The event will be free to attend, but we have limited space available. If you’re interested in participating, please contact us at info@iannotate.org