Towards a Digital Renaissance traces the excitement and optimism of the early internet, the outsider cyberpunk ethic and open access. But it also monitors the more complex but ultimately more commercialised online world of today, a world dominated by corporate business in which many feel that surveillance has become overwhelming. Jeremy Silver's involvement in various start-ups, both as CEO and investor, led to his leadership of Digital Catapult. Towards a Digital Renaissance examines the interplay between state and private financing in the digital sector. It also argues for the internet's potential to transition from a 'medieval' world of the GAFA big four (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple), closed and walled up like medieval city states, to a 'digital renaissance' based on the free exchange of ideas and an enabling metaverse made up of virtual reality and artificial intelligence that deepens our experience of reality rather than restricting or monitoring it.

This Handbook brings together foundational and leading-edge research exploring dimensions of improving quality of life in communities of place. Social indicators and other assessment techniques will be explored, including from the framework of community perspectives which is concerned with enhancing quality of life for community members. As part of this trans-disciplinary work, participation, engagement, and empowerment will be key concepts presented. Along with capacity building and service provision, these elements influence community well-being and will be considered along with subjective and objective assessment approaches. Researchers from around the globe share their work on this important topic of community well-being, bringing together a diverse array of disciplinary perspectives. Those working in the areas of public policy, community development, community and social psychology, urban and regional planning, and sustainable development will find this volume particularly useful for the array of approaches presented.

There has been an explosion in the creation and use of digital media over the past quarter century and in particular over the past decade. As the varieties of digital media multiply, scholars are beginning to examine its origins, organization, and preservation, which present new challenges compared to the organization and preservation of traditional media such as books, papers, films, photographs, music scores, and works of art. In order to examine from multiple perspectives issues related to history, preservation, and ontology of digital media, editors of this volume organized an invitation-only workshop on digital media. The participants were carefully chosen to represent a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from humanities to informationstudies to technology to history to communication theory to fine arts. The book is organized in four parts, each representing a different perspective on digital media: preservation, interaction, organization, and history. The preservation section considers the problems of archiving digital media for long-term preservation. Many digital objects are readily copied but are fragile and not designed for preservation, and this nature of digital objects provides both challenges and opportunities for adapting archival practice. The remaining sections look at the interaction between technological changes and cultural practices, the organization of digital media, and the history of digital media and how technology has changed over time. The wealth of varied perspectives collected together in this volume provides new light on the topic of digital media.