28 June 2012
Third Plenary Speaker announced: Siva Vaidhyanathan
In addition to the confirmed Keynote Speaker, Helena Ranta, and the Plenary Speakers, Peter Von Bagh and Yrjö Engeström, IFLA is delighted to announce the third Plenary Speaker, Siva Vaidhyanathan.
Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently the Robertson Professor in Media Studies at the University of Virginia. From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including the Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a popular blog.
In March 2011, the University of California Press published his book, The Googlization of Everything to great acclaim. He is also a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book. In 2011 he was appointed chair of UVA's Department of Media Studies.
In March 2002, Library Journal cited Vaidhyanathan among its “Movers & Shakers” in the library field. In the feature story, Vaidhyanathan lauded librarians for being “on the front lines of copyright battles” and for being “the custodians of our information and cultural commons.” In November 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education called Vaidhyanathan “one of academe’s best-known scholars of intellectual property and its role in contemporary culture.” He has testified as an expert before the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
He is noted for opposing the Google Books scanning project on copyright grounds. He has published the opinion that the project poses a danger for the doctrine of fair use, because the fair use claims are arguably so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right.
Siva Vaidhyanathan was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning both a B.A. in history and a Ph.D. in American studies.
Date: 15 August, 08:30–09:30
Location: Session Room 1
Listen to a podcast with Siva Vaidhyanathan on TheStreet.com (interview starts at minute 20)
Watch Siva's talk at The Strand bookstore