Internet Time, Real Time, Geologic Time, and Bureaucratic Time

Dr. Michael Lesk

Director of Division of Information and Intelligent Systems
National Science Foundation
Computer Science Graduate Seminar

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998, 2-3pm
Donaldson Brown Auditorium

Sponsored by:
Department of Computer Science
Center for Science and Technology Studies
Research Division
Information Systems
Digital Library Research Laboratory
Internet Technology Innovation Center

Abstract:

The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) has recommended a major expansion of research in computer science. What topics are most important? What agency should administer the funds? And what style of research is most important?

I will try to explain the NSF style: small projects, little supervision, peer review, and a wide span of scientific interest, and contrast with the PITAC desire for big projects, focussed in four areas (which are getting steadily broader). The most important conflict, especially for those of us temporarily at NSF, is the discrepancy between the rate at which NSF can change and the rate at which computer science is changing. In my division, we are trying to start new programs in universal access, ethical/legal/social implications of information technology, visualization, multilingual technology, international digital libraries and personal robotics; but it's a race with the clock. Responding to the PITAC issues may take so long that new challenges might be more important (e.g. workforce shortages may disappear through rising university enrollments in CS while we are still debating what to do about them). Money to be spent in September 2000 is being settled now; computer science moves faster than that.

Biographical Sketch:

Michael Lesk is author of the seminal 1997 Morgan Kaufmann book: Practical Digital Libraries: Books, Bytes & Bucks that has been used as a text in 2 courses at Virginia Tech. At NSF he is Division Director, Information and Intelligent Systems which is the home for NSF digital library efforts. Before coming to NSF he ran computer science activities at Bellcore. Before that he was at Bell Labs, where he was responsible for key parts of UNIX (e.g., lex, yacc) and launched the UUCP networking environment. See his home page http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/

A chemist by training, Dr. Lesk implemented the first version of the SMART information retrieval while at Harvard in the early 1960's. The technology demonstrated in SMART at that time has only recently been made widely available in the new generation of WWW search engines.

Dr. Lesk is Visiting Professor in computer science at University College London; on the Visiting Committee for the Harvard University Library; and worked with the Commission on Preservation and Access addressing digital preservation issues. He received the ``Flame'' award for lifetime achievement from Usenix in 1994, and is a Fellow of the ACM.