Introduction

The "digital curation" concept is still evolving.

In "Digital Curation and Trusted Repositories: Steps toward Success," Christopher A. Lee and Helen R. Tibbo define digital curation as follows:

Digital curation involves selection and appraisal by creators and archivists; evolving provision of intellectual access; redundant storage; data transformations; and, for some materials, a commitment to long-term preservation. Digital curation is stewardship that provides for the reproducibility and re-use of authentic digital data and other digital assets. Development of trustworthy and durable digital repositories; principles of sound metadata creation and capture; use of open standards for file formats and data encoding; and the promotion of information management literacy are all essential to the longevity of digital resources and the success of curation efforts.

This resource guide presents selected English-language websites and documents that are useful in understanding and conducting digital curation. It is also available as an EPUB file (see How to Read EPUB Files).

Resource links are subject to change. URLs may alter without warning (or automatic forwarding) or they may disappear altogether.

Another useful guide is Digital Preservation in a Box by the Outreach Working Group of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance and its community of users.

Academic Programs

Certificate in Digital Curation (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), http://sils.unc.edu/programs/certificates/digital_curation

Certificate of Advanced Study in Data Science (Syracuse University), http://ischool.syr.edu/academics/graduate/datascience/index.aspx

Certificate of Advanced Study in Digital Preservation (Kent State University), http://www.kent.edu/slis/programs/upload/cas-dp-guidesheet_2011.pdf

Certificate of Advanced Study with a specialization in digital archiving (University of Texas at Austin), http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/programs/specializations/#Archives

Digital Curation Certificate (University of Maine), http://digitalcuration.umaine.edu/

Data Curation Curriculum Search, http://cirssweb.lis.illinois.edu/DCCourseScan1/index.html

Digital Stewardship Certificate (Simmons College), http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/academics/programs/certificate/dsc.php

Graduate Certificate in Digital Information Management (University of Arizona), http://digin.arizona.edu/

Master of Science, Records Management and Digital Preservation (University of Dundee), http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cais/rmir/

Master of Science in Information, Preservation of Information specialization (University of Michigan), http://www.si.umich.edu/academics/msi/preservation-information-pi

Master of Science in Information Management & Preservation (Digital) (University of Glasgow), http://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/informationmanagementpreservationdigitalarchivesrecordsmanagement/

Master of Science: Specialization in Data Curation (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), http://www.lis.illinois.edu/academics/programs/ms/data_curation

Discussion Lists and Groups

Digital Curation Google Group, https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/digital-curation

Digital Curation LinkedIn Group, http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Curation-4158855

Digipres@ala.org, http://lists.ala.org/wws/arc/digipres

Digital-Preservation@jiscmail.ac.uk, https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=digital-preservation

ICE@jiscmail.ac.uk, https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ICE

Research-Dataman@jiscmail.ac.uk, https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RESEARCH-DATAMAN

Web-Archive@groupes.renater.fr, https://groupes.renater.fr/sympa/info/web-archive

File Formats and Guidelines

CDL Digital File Format Recommendations: Master Production Files, http://www.cdlib.org/gateways/docs/cdl_dffr.pdf

Digitization Guidelines (University of Virginia Library), http://guides.lib.virginia.edu/content.php?pid=40437&sid=297543

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative, http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/

File Formats & Guidelines (Harvard Library Technology Services), http://hul.harvard.edu/ois/digpres/guidance.html

File Formats Table (UK Data Archive), http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/format/formats-table

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Digital Audio and Video Records (National Archives), http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/dav-faq.html

Guidelines for a Long-term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata (Digitising Contemporary Art project), http://www.dca-project.eu/images/uploads/news_activities/DCA_D61_Guidelines_Long_Term_Preservation_Strategy_20120213_V1.pdf

Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects (Web Edition) (International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives), http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation

Guides to Good Practice (Archaeology Data Service and Digital Antiquity), http://guides.archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/g2gp/Main

Mediapedia: Physical Format Carrier Resource, http://mediapedia.nla.gov.au/home.php

PRONOM, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Default.aspx

Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/descriptions.shtml

Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Creation Programmes (MINERVA EC), http://www.minervaeurope.org/publications/MINERVA%20TG%202.0.pdf

Unified Digital Format Registry (UDFR), http://udfr.org/

VideoPreservation Website, http://videopreservation.conservation-us.org/index.html

Glossaries

AHDS Digital Preservation Glossary, http://www.ahds.ac.uk/preservation/preservation-glossary.pdf

Digital Preservation Glossary (University of Michigan Library), http://www.lib.umich.edu/preservation-and-conservation/digital-preservation/digital-preservation-glossary

Glossary (Digital Curation Centre), http://www.dcc.ac.uk/digital-curation/glossary

Glossary (ICPSR), http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/curation/preservation/glossary.jsp

A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology (The Society of American Archivists), http://www.archivists.org/glossary/

Glossary of Metadata Standards (Jenn Riley), http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/seeingstandards_glossary_pamphlet.pdf

Glossary of Terms (Archives New Zealand), http://archives.govt.nz/advice/continuum-resource-kit/glossary

Introduction—Definitions and Concepts (Digital Preservation Coalition), http://www.dpconline.org/advice/preservationhandbook/introduction/definitions-and-concepts

Metadata Standards and Vocabularies

ANSI/NISO Z39.85-2007, The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/6576/The%20Dublin%20Core%20Metadata%20Element%20Set.pdf

ANSI/NISO Z39.87-2006, Data Dictionary—Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images, http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/project/details.php?project_id=69

Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) Standard, http://www.virtualastronomy.org/AVM_DRAFTVersion1.1_rlh27.pdf

audioMD and videoMD, http://www.loc.gov/standards/amdvmd/index.html

Categories for the Description of Works of Art, http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/cdwa/index.html

Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/metadata/base-metadata/index_html

Darwin Core, http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/index.htm

Data Documentation Initiative, http://www.ddialliance.org/

DCMI Specifications, http://dublincore.org/specifications/

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) Writer's Guide, http://gcmd.nasa.gov/User/difguide/difman.html

Ecological Metadata Language, http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/eml/

ETD-MS v1.1: An Interoperability Metadata Standard for Electronic Theses and Dissertations, http://www.ndltd.org/standards/metadata

Fedora Object XML (FOXML), http://fedora-commons.org/download/2.0/userdocs/digitalobjects/introFOXML.html

ISO 15836:2009, Information and Documentation—The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=52142

ISO 19115:2003: Geographic information—Metadata, http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=26020

ISO 23081-2:2009, Information and Documentation—Managing Metadata for Records—Part 2: Conceptual And Implementation Issues, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=50863

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/

Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS), http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/

Metadata for Images in XML Standard (MIX), http://www.loc.gov/standards/mix/

Metadata Implementation Guidelines for Digitised Contemporary Artworks (Digitising Contemporary Art project), http://www.dca-project.eu/images/uploads/news_activities/DCA_D31_Metadata_Implementation_Guidelines_20120120_V1_1.pdf

Metadata Models, Interoperability Gaps and Extensions to Preservation Metadata Standards (covers AV metadata), http://www.prestocentre.org/system/files/library/resource/metadata_models_v1.01.pdf

Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS): http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/

Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange, http://www.openarchives.org/ore/

PBCore, Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary Project, http://www.pbcore.org/

Preservation Metadata Maintenance Activity (PREMIS), Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/

Registry Interchange Format—Collections and Services (RIF-CS), http://globalregistries.org/rifcs.html

Scholarly Works Application Profile, http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Scholarly_Works_Application_Profile

Seeing Standards: A Visualization of the Metadata Universe (Jenn Riley), http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/

SEPIADES. Recommendations for Cataloguing Photographic Collections, http://www.ica.org/7363/paag-resources/sepiades-recommendations-for-cataloguing-photographic-collections.html

Standards at the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/standards/

TEI: Text Encoding Initiative, http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml

VRA Core, http://www.vraweb.org/projects/vracore4/index.html

XFDU, http://sindbad.gsfc.nasa.gov/xfdu/

Models

DCC Curation Lifecycle Model (Digital Curation Centre), http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model

"DCC&U: An Extended Digital Curation Lifecycle Model," http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/100

ISO 14721:2003, Space Data and Information Transfer Systems —Open Archival Information System —Reference Model (OAIS), http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=24683

The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: Introductory Guide, http://www.dpconline.org/docs/lavoie_OAIS.pdf

Research Data Lifecycle (UK Data Archive), http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/life-cycle

Review of Data Management Lifecycle Models, http://opus.bath.ac.uk/28587/

Organizations

Alliance for Preservation Access, http://www.alliancepermanentaccess.org/

Australian National Data Service, http://ands.org.au/index.html

Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), http://www.clir.org/

Data Conservancy, http://dataconservancy.org/

Digital Curation Centre, http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

Digital Preservation Coalition, http://www.dpconline.org/

Digital Preservation Outreach & Education, Library of Congress, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/education/

e-Depot, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, http://www.kb.nl/hrd/dd/index-en.html

Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP), http://www.imappreserve.org/

International Internet Preservation Consortium, http://www.netpreserve.org/

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/curation/index.jsp

JISC, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/topics/digitalpreservation.aspx

National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, Library of Congress, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

National Digital Stewardship Alliance, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/

Open Planets Foundation, http://www.openplanetsfoundation.org/

UK Data Archive, http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/

University of California Curation Center, http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/

Policies

BU Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (Boston University Libraries), http://www.bu.edu/dioa/digital-common/boston-university-libraries-digital-preservation-policy/

Cornell University Library Digital Preservation Policy Framework, http://hdl.handle.net/1813/11230

Digital Preservation Policies Study, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2008/jiscpolicyfinalreport.aspx

Digital Preservation Policy (Dartmouth College Library), http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/about/policies/preservation.html

Digital Preservation Policy (J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah), http://www.lib.utah.edu/collections/digital/digital-preservation.php

Digital Preservation Policy (Library and Archives of Canada), http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/digital-initiatives/012018-2000.01-e.html

Digital Preservation Policy (University of Texas at Arlington), http://hdl.handle.net/10106/1967

Digital Preservation Policy (Yale University Library), http://www.library.yale.edu/iac/DPC/final1.html

Digital Preservation Policy for the State and University Library, Denmark, http://en.statsbiblioteket.dk/About%20the%20library/dppolicyhttp://en.statsbiblioteket.dk/About%20the%20library/dppolicy

IDEALS Digital Preservation Policy (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), https://services.ideals.illinois.edu/wiki/bin/view/IDEALS/IDEALSDigitalPreservationPolicy

JScholarship Digital Preservation Policy (Johns Hopkins University), http://www.library.jhu.edu/collections/institutionalrepository/irpreservationpolicy.html

Policy for Preservation of Digital Resources (Columbia University Libraries), http://library.columbia.edu/content/libraryweb/services/preservation/dlpolicy.html

Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) Digital Preservation Policy, http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/content/PURRdigitalpreservationpolicy.pdf

ResearchWorks Archive Digital Preservation Policy (University of Washington Libraries), http://digital.lib.washington.edu/policy-preservation.html

University Digital Conservancy Preservation Policy (University of Minnesota), http://conservancy.umn.edu/pol-preservation.jsp

University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries Digital Preservation Policy, http://www.library.umass.edu/assets/aboutus/attachments/University-of-Massachusetts-Amherst-Libraries-Digital-Preservation-Policy3-18-2011-templated.pdf

Research Data Management

Citing Data (Dryad), http://wiki.datadryad.org/Citing_Data

Databib, http://databib.org/

Data Management for Researchers (Australian National Data Service), http://ands.org.au/researchers/manage-data.html

Data Management Plan Templates (Columbia University Libraries/Information Services), http://scholcomm.columbia.edu/data-management/data-management-plan-templates/

Guidelines for Effective Data Management Plans (ICPSR), http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/ICPSR/dmp/index.html

Edinburgh University Data Library Research Data Management Handbook, http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/docs/data-library/EUDL_RDM_Handbook.pdf

Managing and Sharing Data: Best Practice for Researchers (UK Data Archive), http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/media/2894/managingsharing.pdf

Primer on Data Management: What You Always Wanted to Know (DataOne), http://www.dataone.org/sites/all/documents/DataONE_BP_Primer_020212.pdf

Resources for Data Management Planning (ARL), http://www.arl.org/rtl/eresearch/escien/nsf/nsfresources.shtml

Serials and Blogs

DigitalKoans, http://digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans

Digital Preservation Newsletter, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/news/

International Journal of Digital Curation, http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/index

e-Science Community Blog, http://esciencecommunity.umassmed.edu/

JISC Beginner's Guide to Digital Preservation, http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/jisc-bgdp/

The Signal: Digital Preservation, http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/

What's New (Digital Preservation Coalition), http://dpconline.org/newsroom/whats-new

Services and Vendor Software

Archive-It, http://www.archive-it.org/

Chronopolis, http://chronopolis.sdsc.edu/

Controlled LOCKSS (CLOCKSS), http://www.clockss.org/clockss/

DataCite, http://datacite.org/

Digital Archive, http://www.oclc.org/digitalarchive/

Digital Preservation Network, http://d-p-n.org/

DuraCloud, http://www.duracloud.org/

EASY (Electronic Archiving System), https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/home

HathiTrust, http://www.hathitrust.org/home

Internet Archive, http://archive.org/index.php

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), http://www.lockss.org/

MetaArchive Cooperative, http://www.metaarchive.org/the-cooperative

MIXED (Migration to Intermediate XML for Electronic Data), https://sites.google.com/a/datanetworkservice.nl/mixed/

OCLC Digital Archive, http://www.oclc.org/digitalarchive/

Portico, http://www.portico.org/digital-preservation/

Preservica, http://www.digital-preservation.com/solution/preservica/

Rosetta, http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/RosettaOverview

Web Harvester, http://www.oclc.org/webharvester/

Software and Tools

ACE (Auditing Control Environment), https://wiki.umiacs.umd.edu/adapt/index.php/Ace

Archivematica, https://www.archivematica.org/wiki/Main_Page

BAT: BnfArcTools, http://bibnum.bnf.fr/downloads/bat/

Bulk_Extractor, https://github.com/simsong/bulk_extractor/wiki/Introducing-bulk_extractor

Checksum Checker, http://sourceforge.net/projects/checksumchecker/

CINCH (Capture Ingest Checksum), http://cinch.nclive.org/Cinch/

Collaborative Assessment of Research Data Infrastructure and Objectives (CARDIO), http://cardio.dcc.ac.uk/

Curators-Workbench, https://github.com/UNC-Libraries/Curators-Workbench

DAITSS (Digital Preservation Repository Software), http://daitss.fcla.edu/

Data Accessioner, http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/about/tools/data-accessioner.html

DataBank, http://www.dataflow.ox.ac.uk/index.php/databank/db-about

DataStage, http://www.dataflow.ox.ac.uk/index.php/datastage/ds-download

Dataverse Network, http://thedata.org/home

Dependency Discovery Tool, http://sourceforge.net/projects/officeddt/

DIASER, http://sourceforge.net/projects/diaser/

Digital Preservation Recorder, http://sourceforge.net/projects/dpr/

Digital Preservation Software Platform, http://dpsp.sourceforge.net/

Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA), http://www.repositoryaudit.eu/

Dioscuri, http://sourceforge.net/projects/dioscuri/

DMP Online, https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/

DMPTool, https://dmp.cdlib.org/

DROID, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/our-services/dc-file-profiling-tool.htm

DSpace, http://www.dspace.org/

DVA-Profession, http://www.dva-profession.mediathek.at/

ECHO DEPository: Exploring Collaborations to Harness Objects with a Digital Environment for Preservation, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/echodep.html

EMET: Embedded Metadata Extraction Tool, http://www.artstor.org/global/g-html/download-emet-public.html

Emulation Framework, http://emuframework.sourceforge.net/

Fedora Repository, http://www.fedora-commons.org/

File Information Tool Set (FITS), http://code.google.com/p/fits/

Global Digital Format Registry, http://www.gdfr.info/download.html

Heritrix, https://webarchive.jira.com/wiki/display/Heritrix/Heritrix

ICA-AtoM, http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/external/ica-atom

Image-ExifTool, http://search.cpan.org/dist/Image-ExifTool/

IngestList, http://ingestlist.sourceforge.net/

iRODS (Integrated Rule Oriented Data Systems), https://www.irods.org/index.php/Downloads

JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment), http://sourceforge.net/projects/jhove/

JHOVE2, https://bitbucket.org/jhove2/main/wiki/Home

Library of Congress Transfer Tools, http://loc-xferutils.sourceforge.net/

L-Store (Logistical Storage), http://www.lstore.org/pwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Download.HomePage

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), http://sourceforge.net/projects/lockss/

Metadata Extraction Tool, http://www.natlib.govt.nz/services/get-advice/digital-libraries/metadata-extraction-tool/?searchterm=metadata%20extraction

METS Java Toolkit, http://hul.harvard.edu/mets/

Nesstar, http://www.nesstar.com/

NetarchiveSuite, https://sbforge.org/display/NAS/NetarchiveSuite;jsessionid=13C5C9FAB386702BF776522C3E345DEE

NutchWAX, http://archive-access.sourceforge.net/projects/nutchwax/

Package Manager, http://twiki.dcc.rl.ac.uk/bin/view/Main/PackagingTools

Planets Digital Preservation Suite, http://sourceforge.net/projects/planets-suite/

PREMIS in METS Toolbox, http://pim.fcla.edu/

RESTful Bag Server Implementation, https://scm.umiacs.umd.edu/redmine/adapt/projects/ingestion

SIARD (Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases), http://www.bar.admin.ch/dienstleistungen/00823/00825/index.html?lang=en

The Sleuth Kit, http://www.sleuthkit.org/

WarcManager, https://wiki.umiacs.umd.edu/adapt/index.php/WarcManager

Warrick, http://warrick.cs.odu.edu/

Wayback Machine, http://archive-access.sourceforge.net/projects/wayback/

Web Archives Workbench, http://sourceforge.net/projects/webarchivwkbnch/

Web Curator Tool, http://webcurator.sourceforge.net/

WERA (Web Archive Access), http://archive-access.sourceforge.net/projects/wera/

Xena, http://xena.sourceforge.net/

Training

Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Curriculum and Certificate Program (Society of American Archivists), http://www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das

Digital Curation Training for All (Digital Curation Centre), http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training

Data Management Courses and Training (Digital Curation Centre), http://www.dcc.ac.uk/node/8975

Research Data MANTRA, http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/index.html

Training (Digital Preservation Coalition), http://www.dpconline.org/training

Training Opportunities (Digital Preservation Outreach & Education), http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/education/courses/index.html

Appendix A. Related Bibliographies

Bailey, Charles W., Jr. Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2012. http://digital-scholarship.org/dcbw/dcb.htm

———. Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2011. http://digital-scholarship.org/iretd/iretd2011.htm

———. Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2011. http://digital-scholarship.org/sepb/annual/sepb2010.htm

———. Research Data Curation Bibliography. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2012. http://digital-scholarship.org/rdcb/rdcb.htm

Appendix B. About the Author

Charles W. Bailey, Jr. is the publisher of Digital Scholarship. He has over 30 years of information and instructional technology experience, including 24 years of managerial experience in academic libraries. From 2004 to 2007, he was the Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston Libraries. From 1987 to 2003, he served as Assistant Dean/Director for Systems at the University of Houston Libraries.

Previously, he served as Head, Systems and Research Services at the Health Sciences Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Systems Librarian at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, The Johns Hopkins University; User Documentation Specialist at the OCLC Online Computer Library Center; and Media Library Manager at the Learning Resources Center, SUNY College at Oswego. For more details, see the "Brief Resume of Charles W. Bailey, Jr."

Bailey has been an open access publisher for over 23 years. In 1989, Bailey established PACS-L, a mailing list about public-access computers in libraries, and The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, the first open access journal in the field of library and information science. He served as PACS-L Moderator until November 1991 and as Editor-in-Chief of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review until the end of 1996.

In 1990, Bailey and Dana Rooks established Public-Access Computer Systems News, an electronic newsletter, and Bailey co-edited this publication until 1992.

In 1992, he founded the PACS-P mailing list for announcing the publication of selected e-serials, and he moderated this list until 2007.

In 1996, he established the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (SEPB), an open access book that has been updated 80 times.

In 2001, he added the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog, which announces relevant new publications, to SEPB.

In 2001, he was selected as a team member of Current Cites, and he has subsequently been a frequent contributor of reviews to this monthly e-serial.

In 2005, he published the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-prints and Open Access Journals with the Association of Research Libraries (also a website).

In 2005, Bailey established Digital Scholarship (http://digital-scholarship.org/), which provides information and commentary about digital copyright, digital curation, digital repositories, open access, scholarly communication, and other digital information issues. Digital Scholarship's digital publications are open access. Publications are under versions of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.

He also established DigitalKoans, a weblog that covers the same topics as Digital Scholarship.

From February 2005 through August 2012, Bailey published the following books: the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2008 Annual Edition (2009), Digital Scholarship 2009 (2010), Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (2010,), the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 (2011), the Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 (2011), the Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 (2011), and the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works (2012).

During this period, Bailey also published and updated the following bibliographies as websites with links to freely available works: the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (1996-2011), the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography (2005-2012), the Google Books Bibliography (2005-2011), the Institutional Repository Bibliography (2009-2011), the Open Access Journals Bibliography (2010), the Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography (2010-2011), the E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography (2011), and the Research Data Curation Bibliography (2012).

In 2011, he established the LinkedIn Digital Curation Group.

For more details, see the "Digital Scholarship Publications Overview."

In 2010, Bailey was given a Best Content by an Individual Award by The Charleston Advisor. In 2003, he was named as one of Library Journal's "Movers & Shakers." In 1993, he was awarded the first LITA/Library Hi Tech Award For Outstanding Communication for Continuing Education in Library and Information Science.

In 1973, Bailey won a Wallace Stevens Poetry Award. He is the author of The Cave of Hypnos: Early Poems, which includes several poems that won that award.

Bailey has written over 30 papers about digital copyright, expert systems, institutional repositories, open access, scholarly communication, and other topics. See the "Selected Publications of Charles W. Bailey, Jr." for a more complete description of his publications.

He has served on the editorial boards of Information Technology and Libraries, Library Software Review, and Reference Services Review.

He holds master's degrees in information and library science and instructional media and technology.