Research

The institute should take the lead in integrating Swedish (and then Baltic) historical archives by structuring the top-level website and linking these archive web sites into a 'webring' and a virtual research institute library. The University Library might be a suitable partner in such a venture but direction should come, not from librarians but from those familiar with using 'historical sources'.

The holder of the keys to the library of the future will be the webmasters who control the flow in the pipeline moving information onto the website and through cyberspace to (a) inhabitants in the Stockholm City Region, (b) citizens of the Baltic Lakes Region and (c) further afield to the Swedish diasporas dotted about the North Atlantic 19th century water trails and elsewhere.

Research leadership lies in the development of a web research strategy for each of these fields. The web based strategy might look very different to traditional textbooks. See for instance the suggestions in 'Maps, mapping and modelling'. Swedish research has a comparative advantage in the following areas of inter-national historical research.

Friday 4th June 1999