Connection Central – Anna Palmer – Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture

Anna Palmer – Coordinator for the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture
In this blog series, we introduce people working for or associated with the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture.

I became involved with the Center as its coordinator in 2011. Before that time, graduate students and the Center’s director covered the duties required to make the Center function. When Professor Christine Pawley, longtime director of the Center, began making retirement plans, it was decided that having a permanent staff member on board would be best to facilitate the transition to the newly hired director, Assistant Professor Jonathan Senchyne.

My work with the Center leans heavily towards logistics—scheduling colloquia and meetings, organizing the biennial conference, coordinating the Danky Fellowship, and communicating details to all involved. After functioning ‘on a shoestring,’ it seemed like a luxury to long time board members to have a coordinator available to keep track of details. However, the duties line up well with my strengths; I enjoy organizing events. It is gratifying to be part of a successful colloquium or conference and to ensure that presenters and participants feel their time has been well spent. The work also fits nicely with my original duties for the Information School in communications, admissions, and professional development.

For twenty-five years, the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture has been fostering the interdisciplinary study of print and digital culture, through lectures and colloquia, biennial conferences, short-term research and long-term postdoctoral fellowships, a book series, and as a home for campus research groups. We encourage scholarly work on the authorship, reading, publication and distribution of print–and now digital–materials, produced by those not only at the center, but also the periphery of power.