What is the Australian and New Zealand Digital Encyclopedia Group?
The Australia and New Zealand Digital Encyclopaedia Group (ANZDEG) is a loose affiliation of people working on, or associated with, online reference collections. We include people working on small, individual projects and members of large institutions - the definition of "digital encyclopaedia" is deliberately vague so as to encompass a broad range of projects and interests. The group includes people working in eResearch and digital humanities, libraries and archives, museums, web publishing and computing science.
Our annual conference has covered such topics as:
- Resource discovery services.
- Incorporating maps and spatial data into encyclopaedia applications.
- Topic maps.
- Searching across multiple collections.
- Handling maintenance and workflow issues in growing projects.
- Metadata and tagging.
- Authority control.
- Showcases of particular digital projects.
History
On the 8-9 July 2004, participants in a joint Computing Arts/Australian Historical Association conference track on digital encyclopaedias decided to continue their discussions. This marked the beginning of the Australia and New Zealand Digital Encyclopedia Group. Since 2004, we have met on an annual basis.
However, if you are looking for more fundamental forces, you might consider the growth of interest in authoritative on-line reference material since the beginning of the century.
