Terra Fluxus: Surveying the Digital Information Landscape of Environmental Design

Librarians and archivists play vital roles in stewarding our environment and its record. Informing and documenting its greatest changes in the digital age compels us to traverse an untamed landscape. Increasingly sophisticated information systems and services enrich the evidence base for highly sustainable design practice, but complicate its evermore iterative process. As students, practitioners, and scholars tell the story of an increasingly precious planet, so must we seek to sustain its most wild and fragile forms of documentation. This session will highlight the lessons learned by panelists from leading institutions of environmental design, its history, and its future. They will survey a new landscape of resources, their challenges, and plans to protect them for future generations alongside legacy resources. They will share new models for providing the visual and geographic reference materials upon which the design research process depends, including new competencies and portfolios among professional library staff. They will benchmark best preservation practices for their composite products, including illustrative and construction documents, in both corporate and academic research environments. Each will share case studies that illustrate their respective experience providing these services to design students, practitioners, and/or scholars. Presenters include Karl-Rainer Blumenthal, Valerie Collins, Aliza Leventhal, and Ann Baird Whiteside. The session was moderated by Carole Ann Fabian. This recording is made available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Related Event: ARLISNA 2016 Seattle Conference