Dame Wendy Hall, professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, England, and an early pioneer in serious research on computing and the web, has arrived at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society. Her tenure began in March and she will be in residence for three months.
Hall is a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Her work has been at the forefront of computer science, multimedia and hypermedia, the Semantic Web and digital libraries for more than 30 years.
At the Kluge Center, Hall will research a project titled, “Internet Histories and Futures.” Hall will use the Library’s collections to explore the economic, social and technical dimensions that have contributed to the development of the web as a “socio-technical system.”
Toward the end of her tenure, on Thursday, June 16, Hall will lead a public symposium on how libraries, governments and institutions could preserve and archive the contents of the web. She also will co-host a two-day “hackathon,” featuring 20 to 30 invited participants who will look to develop new open-source tools and approaches for working with large data sets.
Hall has contributed to more than 450 publications, including articles, books, posters and online pieces. She was elected president of the Association for Computing Machinery in July 2008, the first person from outside North America to hold this position. She has been senior vice president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, and founding member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. She was president of the British Computer Society from 2003 to 2004.
The Kluge Chair in Technology and Society is a distinguished senior research position in residence at the Library. Its holder, appointed by the Librarian of Congress, conducts research focusing on the impact of fast-changing technology on human societies, using the rapidly growing digital online resources of the Library, in addition to science and technology reports and documentation worldwide. Hall was appointed to the Kluge chair by Emeritus Librarian of Congress James H. Billington prior to his retirement.
Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world's best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another, to distill wisdom from the Library's rich resources, and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For more information about the Kluge Center visitloc.gov/kluge/.
The Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, holds more than 162 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its website atloc.gov.