HARVARD LIBRARIAN ROBERT DARNTON TO SPEAK ON THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library, will speak on "Books, Libraries, and the Digital Future" on Wednesday, April 1, 3:30 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of the John C. Hodges Library. "Despite a lot of loose talk about the death of the book and the obsolescence of libraries, books and libraries are more important than ever in the current digital environment," Darnton has argued, "and their importance will increase as we design the digital future-if only we can get it right." Darnton has spoken and written extensively on the history and future of books, pointing out the need to find an equilibrium between democratization and commercialization in the book trade. He is a scholar of 18th-century France, book history, and cultural history in general. Darnton was educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1960) and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. After a brief stint as a reporter for The New York Times, he became a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1968 until 2007, when he became Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard. He has been a visiting professor or fellow at many universities and institutes for advanced study, and his outside activities include service as a trustee of the New York Public Library and the Oxford University Press (USA) and terms as president of the American Historical Association and the International Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Among his honors are a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, election to the French Legion of Honor, the National Humanities Medal conferred by President Obama in February 2012, and the Del Duca World Prize in the Humanities awarded by the Institut de France in 2013. Darnton's talk is sponsored by the UT Humanities Center with support from the Haines-Morris Endowment, Ready for the World, the John C. Hodges Humanities Endowment, and the Office of Research and Engagement. REF LINK:http://www.lib.utk.edu/news/2015/03/darnton/ Best Regards, Raghvendra R The information contained in this electronic message and in any attachments to this message is confidential, legally privileged and intended only for use by the person or entity to which this electronic message is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, and have received this message in error, please notify the sender and system manager by return email and delete the message and its attachments and also you are hereby notified that any distribution, copying, review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this electronic transmission or the information contained in it is strictly prohibited. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and may not represent those of the Company or bind the Company. Any commitments made over e-mail are not financially binding on the company unless accompanied or followed by a valid purchase order. This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Mail Scanner, and is believed to be clean. The Company accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. www.jubl.com -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.