This symposium explores how HSTM resources (archives, bibliographies, secondary scholarly works, etc.) are related to four communities - scientists, historians, educators, and laymen-each of which both uses and produces historical materials of different types. The symposium papers will analyze the different roles that HSTM resources play in the ecology of knowledge among these communities. The practical outcome of the symposium will a published collection of papers and a set of recommendations for better tools to meet the needs of these four groups. Only by understanding the place of HSTM in the global ecology of knowledge can we move forward coherently.

The four groups each have unique limitations, expectations, and needs. This means that effective scholarly tools and resources can only be developed around the unique conditions of each community. For the scientific community, HSTM functions as a historical conscience. It relies upon HSTM for its memory and self-understanding. Scientists, of course, are also producers of primary-source content that HSTM must help preserve and make accessible in the form of libraries, archives, museums, and so forth. Finally, sometimes scientists become historians in their own right, producing self-reflective analysis.

Historians form the core of HSTM, we produce secondary resources of many kinds using the specialized methods of our discipline. We rely on HSTM tools for our very livelihood. Archives, bibliographies, and access to textual and non-textual resources are required for everything that we do. Moreover, everything that we produce is an HSTM resource of one kind or another, whether it be a tool, such as a finding aid, or a secondary source, such as a scientific biography.

Educators (from primary school teachers to university professors) use HSTM resources to explain and teach both scientific and humanistic aspects of our cultures. These educators (and, increasingly, their students) also produce teaching resources that HSTM must acknowledge and sometimes preserve.

Finally, the lay public (from politicians and bureaucrats to local news media) often seeks the aid of HSTM. The significance of well-researched and accurate material affects everything from entertainment (expert consultants on feature films, for example) to determining public policies. Many products generated in these popular settings must also be treated as objects of study within HSTM. They, too, are part of this global ecology of knowledge.

The symposium will address these topics in specialized papers related to different communities and different sorts of HSTM resources. We expect that at least two papers will attempt to explore the topic broadly, developing a vision for HSTM resources for the next decade and a blueprint for goals to be adopted by the Commission