Tula Giannini, PhD

Tula Giannini, PhD, MLS, MM, BM

Former Dean and Professor, School of Information

Pratt Institute

tulagiannini@gmail.comgiannini@pratt.edu
My research and professional experiences focus on Information science and technology, digital humanities and culture, GenAI archives, museums and libraries and with interdisciplinary work as a musicologist, manuscript palaeographer, curator, flute performance, writer and poet.
Digital Interaction Matters by T. Giannini 2017Seeing digital in the museum Brings meaning and reasonBright lightsRising to new heightsSo many colors and shadesReal life seems to fadeDigital art Touches my heartSees me - I interactI matter in the museumI'll be coming back
Poem: Ode to Hope by Tula Giannini - War in Ukraine
Poem: Beyond Human by Tula Giannini - from EVA London Conference Symposium.
Heritage and Hollywood: Shaping Human identity and gender from the Renaissance to the age of AI.SocArXiv PapersSocArXiv Papers

Dr. Tula Giannini - Former Dean, 2004-2017, and tenured Professor in the School of Information (SI), Pratt Institute, and in 2015 was the founding Dean of SI. Her academic degrees represent her work across disciplines, holding a PhD in musicology from Bryn Mawr, an MLS from Rutgers University and MM and BM from the Manhattan School of Music in flute performance focusing on contemporary music from the 20th century music to present which compliments her research and publications on period wind instruments and performance practice. Giannini received a Whiting Foundation grant for one year to research in France to finish her dissertation. During this time mostly in Paris, she worked extensively in archives and special collections which led to her appointment as Curator of Musical Instruments at the Library of Congress, recently featured by mainstream news, and getting her MLS from Rutgers University, where she taught in the MLS program, all of which support her current work. Professors Giannini and Jonathan Bowen, co-editors, are under contract with Springer Nature for the book, Handbook of Arts and Computational Culture to be published early 2024.

My Research - focuses on digital and computational culture, museums, information science, musicology, contemporary music, performing arts and period musical instruments and practice. From 2017 to present my publications and courses bring focus to critical concerns and issues of our postdigital world, and look to the future of the information and cultural heritage fields, such as digital culture and its impact on human behavior and identity, activism, computational culture and artificial intelligence, as they converge with social justice movements embodying key values of the field. For example my paper on Art and Design Activism in Museums in a Postdigital World, and the book chapter in Museums and Digital Culture, Contested Space: Activism and Protest. The programs, courses and grants I developed at Pratt serve as pillars of Pratt's School of Information, for example its Archives Certificate and fellowship programs with NYC's leading cultural institutions, reflecting the social and cultural values embedded in my contributions to the filed.

My teaching focusing on digital culture and the heritage sector across museums, libraries and archives, curating the arts, the social impacts of computing and AI on human identity and activism in the arts, and creating new narratives through digital research. My book, Museums and Digital Culture: New Perspectives and Research, co-edited with Prof. Jonathan Bowen, is published by Springer Nature, spring 2019 in their Cultural Computing Series and has been highly reviewed, by Prof. Koslow who describes the book as “a tremendous resource for students, scholars, staff, and artists who work in museums and related cultural heritage organizations ...” My current research is cross-disciplinary between art, information and computer science, and looks at computational culture beginning with the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Alan Turing, published in two papers presented virtually in 2020, at EVA Florence, followed by a paper at EVA London.

In musicology, my work concerns French musical wind instruments and performance practice in their sociocultural contexts Currently, I am working on the book - Pioneers of Wind Instrument Making and Playing in France, 1624-1900, based on newly discovered archival documents, period instruments, music collections and iconography in Paris. My book, Great Flute Makers of France: the Lot and Godfroy Families is considered a seminal work and "model of archival research" (Choice)

Transforming the School of Information - During my tenure as founding Dean of the School of Information (SI), from 2015, I transformed the School for the 21st century from being a singular MS degree in LIS, to the School of Information by introducing three new innovative master of science programs: MS Museums and Digital Culture, the first such program, MS Information Experience Design and MS Data Analysis and Visualization. I gained membership in the iSchools organization, and aligned with the Institute's focus on the arts, humanities, digital arts and culture. Prior to this, I introduced an Advanced Certificate in Archives 2004; Advanced Certificate in Museum Libraries 2005 (the first such program), a Dual Master's with Digital Arts (MSLIS & MFA DA) 2008 (received and innovation award from NASED). In 2015, I also introduced three Advanced Certificates: Conservation and Digital Curation, Digital Humanities and User Experience. To promote experiential hands-on learing, I introduced the 2-semester student fellowship program based on my IMLS grants which has become a center-piece of student success.

Grants Awarded - From 2008 to 2015 I wrote four major IMLS grants for Pratt's School of Information totaling more than three million dollars. (see links below). This funding supported fellowships and internships and curriculum for Pratt students in NYC museums, libraries and archives: GATEWAI (Graduate Archives Training and Education, Work and Information- M-LEAD-I (Museum Library Education and Digitization) with the Brooklyn Historical Society, and M-LEAD II with the Brooklyn Museum - further with Brooklyn Museum, and CHART (Cultural Heritage: Access, Research and Technology). This project produced the Brooklyn Visual Heritage website housed at the Brooklyn Public Library and was an innovative partnership grant between Pratt and BPL, Brooklyn Museum and Brooklyn Heritage Society - the first to use API and interoperability across collections and search. And in 2017, for BPL's Librarians of the Future grant, partnering with BPL partnering with Pratt, I designed the grant's workshop program "on digital literacies that build upon teen information behaviors" their participation in the library profession.

Pedagogy: To support these programs and projects, I promote hands-on experiential learning pedagogy, changing the School's lecture classrooms into seminar/labs including the iLab for Digital Culture, the Cultural Informatics Lab and the Research Seminar Lab. I feature learning onsite in museums and libraries which students draw upon to create their projects.

International programs: I created and coordinated two international programs: 1. the London Summer Program - The Arts and Digital Culture in partnership with King's College London (KCL), Department of Digital Humanities DDA) which grew out of our shared educational and research interests and that of our students, and in collaboration with the EVA London Conference, and 2. Florentine Art, Culture and Conservation with SACI in Florence for museum studies and conservation.

Experience - Before coming to Pratt in 1998, I was a full-time Assistant Professor at Catholic University, Washington DC, 1993-1998, where I led their programs in archives and special collections. I also served on the faculty of Rutgers University and the University of Hawaii, Manoa. I was Curator of Musical Instruments at the Library of Congress, Director of the Talbot Music Library at Westminster Choir College, and Head of Collection Management at Adelphi University.

An interdisciplinary researcher across the fields of information science, arts, humanities and musicology - I focus on digital culture and human digital behavior in museums and other cultural institutions. An important aspect of my work, studies users of information in real and virtual environments, art and digital information and their intersections and interactions. My recent publications are concerned with digital life and culture, connecting art and information, and the digital self as expressed in my papers, "Digitalism: The New Realism "and, "Curating Digital Life and Culture: Art and Information." I am internationally recognized researcher and scholar in French musical wind instruments and performance, an expertise that contributes to my teaching and research in terms of performing arts, archival and special collections. My publications in musicology include: some 24 articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Music (Grove Music Online), the book, Great Flute Makers of France, described in Choice as "a model of archival research for all graduate students," first published in English and then in Japanese in 2007, the book chapter, "Frédéric Triebert (1813-1878), Designer of the Modern Oboe," Pendragon Press, 2006, and the JAMIS article, The Raoux Family of Master Horn Makers in France: New Documents and Perspectives, 2014.

In fall 2020, my teaching featured the Practicum/Seminar, and serving as a Center for Teaching and Learning Fellow. (CTL Fellow)

Dean Giannini speaking at student orientation at Pratt iSchool, 2017

RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCE PAPERS

Global Cultural Conflict and Digital Identity: Transforming Museums T Giannini, JP Bowen Preprints 2023

Digital Experience in Art and Identity: The Metaverse Calls

JP Bowen, T Giannini SocArXiv

Vignettes of Computer-based Museum Interactive and Games Software through the Years S Boiano, A Borda, JP Bowen, G Gaia, T Giannini BCS Learning & Development 2022

Digital art and identity merging human and artificial intelligence: enter the metaverse T Giannini, JP Bowen, C Michaels, CH Smith Proceedings of EVA London 2022, 1-7

More Than Human: Merging real and virtural states of being from the arts and culture to wellness in a post-Covid world. Preceedings, EVA London, July 2022. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.24

Giannini, T and Bowen, J.P. Computational Culture: Transforming Archives Practice and Education for a Post-Covid World. Journal of Computing and Cultural Heritage, ACM, March 2022. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/349334

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. Museums and Digital Culture: From Reality to Digitality in the Age of COVID-19. MDPI Journal of Heritage, 5(1): 192-214, Janurary 2022. DOI: 10.3390/heritage5010011

Giannini, T. and Bowen J.P. The Digital Renaissance from da Vinci to Turing Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade Vol. 10, nº Especial, dez. de 2021 https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/museologia/article/view/37241/31901. Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade Vol. 10(nº Especial, dez. de 2021) December 2021.

Giannini, T. and Bowen J.P. The Digital Renaissance from da Vinci to Turing, Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade Vol. 10, nº Especial, dez. de 2021

Giannini, T and Bowen, J.P. Museums at the Crossroads: Between digitality, reality and Covid-19. Symposium, EVA Florence 2021 https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/2g567/

Bowen, J.P. and Giannini, T. Digitality: A Reaity Check. EVA London 2021. Computer Arts Society, BCS. https://www.scienceopen.com/document/read?vid=a265e7ec-a396-4bd7-a5ad-2ddf321f6400

Bowen, JP, Beyond Human: Arts and identity between reality and virtuality in a post-Covid-19 world. J.P., Giannini, T., Falconner, R., Magruder, T., and Marconi, E. Processing of EVA London 2021, Computer Arts Society, BCS. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2021.2

Bowen, J.P. and Giannini, T. Computational Culture and A.I.: Challenging human identity and curatorial practice. EVA London 2020 Conference. Conference Proceedings. https://www.scienceopen.com/document_file/bb0670c5-3aa1-4f0d-9612-f38408707415/ScienceOpen/001_Bowen.pdf

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. The Digital Renaissance from da Vinci to Turing. EVA Florence 2020 Conference, May 2020. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340000301_The_Digital_Renaissance_from_da_Vinci_to_Turing ; https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/h5fm4/

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. Computing the Future: Digital Encounters in art and science when da Vinci meets Turing. EVA London, 2020. https://www.scienceopen.com/document_file/42deecde-573f-483f-b55e-928b689f35df/ScienceOpen/016_Giannini.pdf; https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/729ds/

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. Art and Design Activism at Museum in a Post Digital World. EVA London Conference, July 2019, BCS. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334642864_Art_and_Activism_at_Museums_in_a_Post-digital_World

Bowen, JP and Giannini, T. et al. Digital Art, Culture and Heritage: New constructs and Consciousness. EVA London Conference, July 2019.

Giannini, T. and Bowen, JP. Museums and Digital Culture Digital Culture: New Research and Perspectives. Springer, 2019. Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09647775.2019.1661098?journalCode=rmmc20; https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/729ds/

Giannini, T. and Bowen, JP. Of Museums and Dgitial Culture: A Landscapte View. EVA London Conference, July 2018, BCS.

Bowen, J.P., Giannini, T., et al. States of Being: Art and Identity in Digital Time and Space. EVA London, 2018. Symposium. BCS.

Giannini, T. Museums and the Evolving Digital Landscape. MATCONS 2017, Matter and Materials for Heritage Conservation), Conference paper, Craiova, Romania. 18-22 September 2017. Published proceedings, pp.55-61.

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. Life in Code and Digits, When Shannon Met Turing. Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) Annual Conference Proceedings, British Computer Society, London, July, 2017.

Bowen, J.P. Giannini, T. and Polmeer, Gareth. Coded Communication: Digital Senses and Aesthetics, Merging Art and Life. Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) Annual Conference Proceedings, British Computer Society, London, July, 2017.

Giannini, T and Bowen, J.P. Curating Digital Life and Culture: Art and Information. Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) Annual Conference Proceedings, British Computer Society, London, July, 2016.

Giannini, T and Bowen, J.P. Galois Connections: Mathematics, Art, and Archives. Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) Annual Conference Proceedings, British Computer Society, London, July, 2015.

Giannini, T. Through digital culture, museums share scholarship and augment experience to engage visitors and build community. Kings College London, Department of Digital Humanities, Symposium on Public Engagement, June 2015.

Giannini, T. and J.P. Bowen. A New York Museums and Pratt Partnership: Building Web Collections and Preparing Museum Professionals. Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago. Conference Proceedings.

Giannini, T. and J.P. Bowen. The Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website: Brooklyn's Museum and Libraries Collaborate for Project CHART." Museums and the Web, Baltimore, April 2014. Conference proceedings. http://mw2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-brooklyn-visual-heritage-website/

Giannini, T. and J.P. Bowen. Digitalism: the New Realism? Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) Annual Conference, British Computer Society, London, July 2014.

Giannini, T. Showing Documents, Telling History: Creating New Narratives from Archival Discoveries. Strand Conference, Kings College London, Department of Digital Humanities. June 27, 2014. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/ddh/eventrecords/2014/Symposiumpratt.asp

Giannini, T. The Raoux Family of Master Horn Makers in France: New Documents and Perspectives. Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society. 2014. (see pdf below)

Giannini, T. and Bowen, J.P. The Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website, Brooklyn's Museum and Libraries Collaborate for Project CHART. Conference proceedings. Museums and the Web, Baltimore, April 2014, http://mw2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-brooklyn-visual-heritage-website/

Giannini, T. Making Connections: Collaboration in Research and Practice. King's College London sponsored by the ARHC, Friday 10th January, 2014, "Pratt Institute Partners with Brooklyn’s Museums and Libraries for Research, Education and Creating th Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website"

“The Raoux Family of Master Horn Makers in France.” Oxford University, Galpin Society Conference, July 25, 3013, and the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society (JAMIS) 2014.

Giannini, T. Visualizing Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website. EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts) London 2013 Conference at the British Computer Society, July 29, 2013. Link to the EVA conference paper.

Giannini, T. Pedagogy for Cultural Institutions and Corporations: New Contexts and Perspectives for the Digital World. Ravensbourne Conference on Research and Pedagogy, July 10, 2013.

Giannini, T. How Brooklyn’s Libraries and Museums Collaborate to Create a new Digital Cultural Heritage Resource: The Brooklyn Visual Heritage Website. Strand Symposium, Kings College London, June 27, 2013.

Giannini, T. Brooklyn’s Museums and Libraries Collaborate to Grow the Arts and Information Digital Landscape, Computers and History of Art (CHART) Conference, November 15, 2012.

Right: Giannini presents at King's College London DH Symposium, 2016; Left: Profs. Giannini & Lopatovska with Pratt students at ASIST, Montreal 2013

MUSEUMS AND DIGITAL CULTURE: NEW PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH

Tula Giannini and Jonathan Bowen, Editors

My new book edited with Prof. Jonathan Bowen, Museums and Digital Culture: New Perspectives and Research, Springer 2019, received an excellent review in the Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship by Prof. Jennifer Koslow,

"a tremendous resource for students, scholars, staff, and artists who work in museums and related cultural heritage organizations. Their work builds on Giannini and Bowen’s experi- ences in researching and observing digital engagement, which are extensive, as well as on con- versations initiated at the annual London Conference on Electronic Visualization and the Arts. In addition to Giannini and Bowen’s contributions, twenty-five additional authors offer their perspectives as curators, artists, educators, and museum directors. While numerous works discuss how to use digital tools in museum spaces from an admin- istrative aspect, Giannini and Bowen’s work is original in offering evaluations from both inside and outside formal institutional structures. They argue that ‘while other books are considering museums from the inside-administration, management, process, and collections – our book considers museums from the vantage point of inside/outside interaction, participation, and collaboration. In doing so, this work examines the intellectual validations and complications that arise in attempting to integrate museums into the digital ecosystem. "

Reviewed in the Journal of media and communication research , MedieKultur 2020, 68, 150-152. https://tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur/article/view/121718/169478, by Eva Pina Myrczvik who concludes her review noting,

"At its core, Museums and Digital Culture encapsulates the current state of practicea nd research looking at the ways in which the development of technology and digital culture change both current and future museum and artistic practice. As such, the editors have chosen a fruitful variety of topics, trends, and theories that shape cultural institutions now and in the future."

The book explores how digital culture is transforming museums in the 21st century. Offering a corpus of new evidence for readers to explore, the authors trace the digital evolution of the museum and that of their audiences, now fully immersed in digital life, from the Internet to home and work. In a world where life in code and digits has redefined human information behavior and dominates daily activity and communication, ubiquitous use of digital tools and technology is radically changing the social contexts and purposes of museum exhibitions and collections, the work of museum professionals and the expectations of visitors, real and virtual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museums_and_Digital_Culture

Book by Tula Giannini and Jonathan P. Bowen, eds, The Arts and Computational Culture: Real and Virtual Worlds. Springer Series on Cultural Computing (Springer Nature: Cham, 2024).

Book review by Ozan Yavuz in the International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, University of Edinburgh. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/ijhac.2025.0346

"Ultimately, The Arts and Computational Culture does more than supplement teaching – it transforms it. As educators incorporate its real-world insights and contemporary perspectives, they prepare students to actively navigate and shape the rapidly evolving landscape of computational culture. This book stands as both a foundational and radical teaching tool, compelling students and practitioners alike to interrogate the future of art and technology, and challenging us all to consider what it means to be human as our digital and physical worlds merge. Poised to become an essential reference, this text equips a new generation of artists, thinkers and technologists to redefine the future of digital and interactive art with a critical, engaged perspective."

The Arts and Computational Culture

Eds Tula Giannini & Jonathan P. Bowen Springer (2024)

Review by noted writer, Andrew Robinson for Springer Nature, 27 September 2024. This substantial, topical collection on the arts and computing, edited by information scientist Tula Giannini and computer scientist Jonathan Bowen, begins with polymath Leonardo da Vinci’s blending of art and science and ends with a survey of modern art exhibitions that involve computing. As the editors write, “facilitated by computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithms, and simulated human senses, the arts are expanding their horizons”. Perhaps AI will eventually stand also for Artistic Imagination?

From the Preface

A Paradigm Shift and Defining Moment in the 21st Century: Fuelled by the convergence of computational culture, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, arts and culture are experiencing a revolutionary moment poised to change human life and society on a global scale. There is the promise of the Metaverse, with extended reality (XR) and immersive virtual worlds. For the first time, reality and virtuality are merging with these new developments. The proposed book is among the first to address the context, complexity, and impact of this multi-faceted subject in detail – for up close and personal engagement of the reader, while evoking a landscape view. As digital culture evolves to computational culture, we embark on a digital journey from 2D to 3D, where flat computer screens for the Internet and smart phones are evolving into immersive digital environments. This is while new technologies and AI are increasingly embedded in every aspect of daily life, the arts, and education.

Below: Curriculum Vitae, and fulltext articles in pdf: Raoux, Hotteterre and Ballard

CV-Giannini-2022.pdf

Ballard-French-Music-Printers-fulltext.pdf

jamis2014.pdf

Historical Musicology publications by T. Giannini:

The Raoux Family of Master Horn Makers in France, New Documents and Perspectives. December 2013 Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 40(2014):112-162

Frédéric Triebert (1813-1878), Designer of the Modern Oboe: Newly Found Archival Documents Featuring the Inventory and Auction of his Musical Instrument Enterprise in Liber Amicorum Isabelle Cazeaux Symbols, Parallels and Discoveries in Her Honor, The Festschrift Series No.19, Pendragon Press. April 2005.

The Music Library of Jean-Baptiste Christophe Ballard, Sole Music Printer to the King of France, 1750 Inventory of his Grand Collection Brought to Light. 2003 Indexed in RILM .

Book - Great Flute Makers of France: The Lot and Godfroy Families - 1650-1900. Tony Bingham, London, 1993. 245 pages, 98 plates, 60 document illustrations, 2 genealogical tabes. Based on French archival documents discovered by the author, as well as music collections, original period wind instruments, methods and manuscripts, the book establishes the first in depth history of these two families of French woodwind makers and their place as the designers of the French flute, the one played by leading solo flutists from Louis Dorus and Paul Taffanel to Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway. (See book cover image right, shows a gold flute by Louis Lot made 1869 for Jean Rémusat, and an 18th century boxwood and ivory flute by Thomas Lot.

A French of Dynasty of Master Woodwind Makers Revealed, Bizey Prudent and Porthaux, their Workshop in Paris, rue Dauphine, St. André des Arts, ca 1745-1812: New Archival Documents. AMIS Newsletter. February 1998, pages, 7-10.

A Letter From Louis Rousselet, 18th-Century French Oboist at the Royal Opera In England. Newsletter AMIS , June 1987, Vol.16.2, pp.10-11

Jacques Hotteterre le Romain and His Father, Martin: A Re-Examination Based on Recently Found Documents. Early Music, Oxford University Press, Vol. 21, No. 3, French Baroque II. (Aug., 1993) pp. 377--395.

A New Age of Anxiety by Tula Giannini, October 2022, from poems by Giannini inder the title: Poems for Digital Life and Love,

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