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—Adam Lauder, W.P. Scott Chair for Research in E-Librarianship Electronic media are facilitating the rapid transformation of all aspects of scholarly communication, teaching, learning and research. The IAINBAXTER&raisonnE is an innovative project exploring new, networked and social approaches to the production and dissemination of scholarly activity through the collaborative production of an electronic catalogue raisonné (raisonnE) devoted to the life’s work of Canadian conceptual artist IAIN BAXTER&. Developed in partnership with IAIN BAXTER& and Louise Chance Baxter and in collaboration with an international, interdisciplinary team of scholars as well as York University Libraries, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art (ccca.ca), the prototype raisonnE breaks with the linear, hierarchical and static structures of traditional catalogues by adding content in direct response to the evolving creative, research and teaching needs of a diverse constituency of artists, scholars and students currently researching IAIN BAXTER& and/or the historical transformation of catalogues raisonné, collections and collecting behaviours.  Philosophy The raisonnE is a multi-lingual artist-researcher collaboration which aims to generate new, reusable virtual spaces in support of evolving research projects and creative communication through new approaches to data curation and social production such as blogging. The physical archive is thereby dematerialized and transformed into an open-ended social “event.” Recalling the information sheets generated by the visual researchers of the N.E. Thing Co. (1966-1978)—the conceptual enterprise founded by IAIN BAXTER& —the raisonnE aims to develop an infinitely extensible support for a “flat” array of interdisciplinary data. The e-Chair acts as a mediator between researchers and the archive. Digitized materials resulting from this dialogical interaction function, on one hand, as a third term between the institution and the researcher. But, whereas archival materials held by the Art Gallery of Ontario will be digitized according to established institutional practices and in conformity with recognized standards, the artist’s working archive will be documented using less intrusive, ethnographic methods and at every stage in direct collaboration with IAIN BAXTER&. The traces of this mediating activity constitute a new form of electronic publication imbricated in an ongoing process of Action Research. Supporting Scholarship in Real-Time To request that specific materials in the BAXTER& fonds held by the AGO (to view contents, follow this link) be prioritized for digitization in order to facilitate the creation of private research “albums” or public, user-curated “exhibitions” of raisonnE contents, potential contributors are invited to register with the e-Chair as designated “researchers.”  The raisonnE welcomes user-contributed descriptors of images as well as user-generated annotations. For more information contact the e-Chair. Other scholarly and creative contributions and interventions are welcome, including interviews, essays and reflections. The project is currently accepting proposals: contact the e-Chair (contact information below) for more information on how the raisonnE can facilitate your project. Contributions in French are welcome. In addition to scholarly work devoted specifically to IAIN BAXTER&, the raisonnE actively supports and seeks original research and creative work devoted to the broader context of, and themes informing, BAXTER&’s 50-year practice: commerce, communication, ecology, geography, humour, language, media, sport, and Zen philosophy. Follow the progress of the raisonnE on this blog! http://www.andraisonne.blogspot.com/ **contribute**collaborate**crEate** Contact Adam at alauder@yorku.ca, or 416 736 2100 x55974
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