Seminar Report

DHDS 2018: A Brief Report

International seminar DHDS 2018: Digital Humanities and Digital Societies in the Contemporary World, has just been concluded yesterday. It was organised by the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Calcutta in association with University Grants Commission, Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, Indian Council of Social Science Research and National Digital Library of India. 

It constituted of 2-Days International Seminar (18-19 January, 2018) along with pre/post seminar workshops/tutorials (17th and 20th January, 2018).

Keynote Address was given by: Dr. Hege Stensrud Høsøien, Director, Research and Special Collections, National Library of Norway. Chief Guest was Dr. Arun Kumar Chakraborty, Director General, Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, Ministry of Culture, Government of India and Valedictory Address by: Prof. Amlan Dasgupta, Director, School of Cultural Texts and Records and Professor of English, Jadavpur University

Invited/contributed papers were presented by professionals of 4 continents (Europe, North America, Africa, Asia). About 300 persons from India and abroad attended the seminar. There were 13 Technical Sessions and two special sessions.

Prof. Minakshi Roy, Pro-Vice Chancellor (BA & F), University of Calcutta delivered the inaugural speech. Prof. Dipak Kumar Kar, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic Affairs) delivered the concluding address.

Many states of India took part in the event. Faculty Members, University Library Heads of most universities of West Bengal were invited speakers at two special sessions on ‘Faculty Focus: lightning talks’ and ‘Professionals Speak: lightning talks’, chaired by Prof. Chaitali Datta and Dr. Binod Behari Das respectively.

Eminent Teachers, University Librarians and other professionals including Prof. Ratna Bandyopadhyay, Prof. Chaitali Datta, Prof. P K Panigrahi, Prof. Swapna Bandyopadhyay, Dr. Soumitra Sarkar, Dr. Binod Behari Das, Dr. Sabuj Dasgupta, Dr. Asitava Das, Dr. Hemjyoti Medhi, Dr. Anup Kumar Das, and others chaired different technical sessions.

There was a cultural evening (song, dance and yoga) performed by Indian and Bangladeshi students followed by a GREAT Repertory of classical music vis-à-vis Rabindra Sangeet performed by an eminent artist of both genre, Shri Syamal Saha.

We acknowledge with deep gratitude the support provided by our university authorities, our national/international resource persons, our national/international participants, our amenity providers, our faculty-staff-scholars and especially by our GREAT team of VOLUNTEERS!

Details of the Seminar is available at the seminar website: https://sites.google.com/view/incon2018. Seminar Email id: incon2018@gmail.com

We are VERY SAD that due to scarcity of time, we could not avail the presence of many more respected faculties/professionals. We hope to do better in our future endeavours.

Hope to see you all in our next program.

With deepest regards,

Susmita Chakraborty and Arabinda Maity

Organising Secretary/Working President, DHDS 2018

Dept. of Lib. & Inf. Sc., University of Calcutta