Topics of the Convention

What sources will the scholars of 2060 draw on, and by what means?

Today, paper documents are often being replaced with digital documents, and communication through networks; so what will be left of the vast pile of data that is being stored inside and shared between computers?
Which protagonist or institution will ensure this information remains available? What criteria will be adopted for its selection? What do we intend to leave to posterity as “worth remembering,” and what will we leave behind  unwittingly? What unusual problems might this “digitised past,” seemingly so readily available,  create? And what will be the impact of the Internet and the new digital media on the creation of public discourse on history?

To consider what may constitute a source for socio-historical research in fifty years, we are obliged to ask questions that are not obvious on our way of life, on the undercurrent of change in which we are caught up, but also about the practices and methodologies of research employed today.