PRESS RELEASE FROM NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP AND THE BRITISH LIBRARY
29 January 2009

Contact: Grace Baynes
Corporate PR Planner, Nature Publishing Group
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Contact: Ben Sanderson (British Library)
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ben.sanderson@bl.uk

The British Library is hosting a digital conference that lives up to its name, with one of the three days broadcast in the virtual world Second Life. The Digital Lives Research Conference will take place at the British Library in London, UK, from 9-11 February 2009. On 11 February, virtual delegates can join the conference on the Elucian Islands, the Second Life home of Nature Publishing Group and Macmillan Publishers.

In today's society we live more and more online, with everything on the web from family photos and news to scientific developments and e-books. "No longer can documents, photographs, correspondence and other memorabilia merely be boxed and stacked in the attic," says Dr Jeremy Leighton John, the British Library's Curator of e-Manuscripts and organiser of the Digital Lives conference. "The arrival of email and the web transformed the way people communicate and the widespread ability - gained in the last five years or so - to readily store and transfer files sufficiently large for high resolution photos, sounds and moving images means that the nature of personal archiving has changed forever."

The Digital Lives Research Conference will examine how libraries and archives can support individuals who wish to organise, preserve and transfer their personal digital archives. The conference is hosted by The Digital Lives Research Project and funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The programme for 11 February focuses on the web, and is oriented towards life online and online lives. Appropriately, virtual delegates can enjoy the conference in the form of their avatars in the lush surroundings of the Khufu Conference Centre on the Elucian Islands in Second Life. Topics range from virtual worlds and iScience to cloud computing. Speakers include Dame Wendy Hall DBE and Nature Publishing Group's Timo Hannay. The day finishes with polar explorer Ben Saunders talking about 'Digital Life at the Extremes'.

The conference is free to attend on the 9th and 11th of February, registration is required as space is limited. There is a registration fee of £35 for 10th February, but waivers are available. Please register at the Digital Lives Research Conference 2009 website: www.bl.uk/digital-lives/conference.html. Please indicate whether you would like to attend as an avatar at the conference centre on the Elucian Islands archipelago (virtual world) or in person at the British Library (real world).

The Digital Lives Research Conference takes advantage of the Elucian Islands meeting and conference facilities for science groups, universities, and businesses. The Elucian Islands promote communication and collaboration by providing a fully functional virtual conference facility, with practical and technical support available.

-ENDS-

Useful links:

The Digital Lives Research Conference
The Elucian Islands in Second Life
Instructions are available on how to create an account in Second Life:

More information:

About The Digital Lives Research Project
The Digital Lives Research Project is designed to provide a major pathfinding study of personal digital archives. The project team drawn from the British Library, University College London and University of Bristol is led by Dr Jeremy Leighton John of the British Library (the lead partner) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

About the Elucian Islands
Elucian Islands is the Second Life home of Nature Publishing Group and its parent company Macmillan Publishers Ltd, unveiled in October 2008. NPG has had a presence in Second Life since 2006 when it launched Second Nature. The islands have been redeveloped and expanded to form The Elucian Islands, including a large central island dedicated to all areas of learning. The Elucian Islands feature conference and meeting facilities, skylabs for virtual experiments, a bookstore and a café. More information: www.nature.com/elucianislands

About the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk.

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):
Nature Publishing Group is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic and professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through Nature News. Scientific career information and free job postings are offered on Naturejobs.

NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo and offices in Basingstoke, Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Melbourne, Munich, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.

About Macmillan Publishers Ltd:
With 350 companies operating in over 80 countries, Macmillan Publishers Limited is one of the largest and best known international publishing groups in the world. Its portfolio is very diverse, ranging from consumer fiction and non-fiction books, to education resources, humanities, social sciences and scholarly English language publishing.
For more information, please go to http://international.macmillan.com/