Category: Digital Curation & Digital Preservation

"Massive Newspaper Migration—Moving 22 Million Records from CONTENTdm to Solphal"

Alan Witkowski et al. have published "Massive Newspaper Migration—Moving 22 Million Records from CONTENTdm to Solphal" in D-Lib Magazine.

Utah Digital Newspapers is a pioneering digital newspapers program at the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library. Recently, a small project team completed a successful migration away from CONTENTdm onto a home-grown system called Solphal, built using open-source applications. The migration process is detailed along with examples of scripts used to prepare and enhance metadata. Transitioning away from a limiting vendor-based solution to a home-grown system has enabled the Utah Digital Newspapers program to be more responsive to user requests as well as realizing greater efficiencies in hardware and software. The platform has opened up new possibilities for the future as the collection continues to grow.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Disaster Planning and Trustworthy Digital Repositories

Rebecca D. Frank has self-archived Disaster Planning and Trustworthy Digital Repositories.

Here's an excerpt:

The goal of this study is to understand if digital repositories that have a preservation mandate are engaging in disaster planning, particularly in relation to their pursuit of trusted digital repository status. For those that are engaging in disaster planning, the study examines the creation of formal disaster response and recovery plans, finding that in most cases the process of going through an audit for certification as a trusted repository provides the impetus for the creation of formalized disaster planning documentation. This paper also discusses obstacles that repositories encounter and finds that most repositories struggle with making their documentation available

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Changing Role of Research Publishing: A Case Study from Springer Nature"

Steven Inchcoombe has published "The Changing Role of Research Publishing: A Case Study from Springer Nature" in Insights: the UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Using Springer Nature as a case study this article explores the future of research publishing, with the guiding objective of identifying how such organizations can better serve the needs of researchers and those that support researchers (particularly academic institutions, institutional libraries, research funding bodies and academic societies) as we work together to help advance discovery for the benefit of all. Progress in four key areas is described: improving the publishing process, innovating across science communication, driving the growth and development of open research and adding value beyond publishing. The aim of this article is thus to set out a clear vision of what research publishers can achieve if they especially focus on addressing researchers’ needs and apply their considerable resources and expertise accordingly.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Research Data Infrastructures in the UK

The Open Research Data Task Force has released Research Data Infrastructures in the UK.

Here's an excerpt:

This report is intended to inform the work of the Open Research Data Task Force, which has been established with the aim of building on the principles set out in Open Research Data Concordat (published in July 2016) to co-ordinate creation of a roadmap to develop the infrastructure for open research data across the UK. As an initial contribution to that work, the report provides an outline of the policy and service infrastructure in the UK as it stands in the first half of 2017, including some comparisons with other countries; and it points to some key areas and issues which require attention.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Archives Unleashed Project Awarded $610,625 Grant by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Archives Unleashed Project has been awarded a $610,625 Grant by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The University of Waterloo and York University have been awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to make petabytes of historical internet content accessible to scholars and others interested in researching the recent past. . . .

The three-year Archives Unleashed project has three major thrusts: First, the project will build a software toolkit that applies modern big data analytics infrastructure to scholarly analysis of web archives. Second, the toolkit will be deployed in a cloud-based environment that will provide a one-stop portal for scholars to ingest their collections and execute a number of analyses with the click of a mouse. Finally, datathons—or hackathons—will build a cohesive and sustainable user community by bringing the core project team members together with librarians, archivists, and other interested researchers.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program"

HathiTrust has released "HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program."

Here's an excerpt:

Fifty HathiTrust member libraries have proposed to retain more than 16 million volumes for 25 years under the HathiTrust Shared Print Program. These volumes correspond to more than 4.8 million individual book titles held in the HathiTrust Digital Library (about 65% of all HathiTrust digital monographs). This is a significant step toward the primary goal of the program: to ensure that print copies of all HathiTrust digital holdings remain available to scholars for many years to come. The Shared Print Program is a core program of HathiTrust, supported by and benefiting all of the more than 120 HathiTrust members

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Metadata for Research Data Discovery and Management"

Lizz Jennings has published "Metadata for Research Data Discovery and Management" in Catalogue and Index.

Here's an excerpt:

Requirements for sharing research data have increased in recent years, partly in response to the open science agenda and partly as a means to make better use of data generated using public money. Research funders increased their expectations of researchers in relation to research data sharing, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) was the first Research Council to put the onus on institutions to provide support for this

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Open Data: The Researcher Perspective

Elsevier and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies have released Open Data: The Researcher Perspective.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The study is based on a complementary methods approach consisting of a quantitative analysis of bibliometric and publication data, a global survey of 1,200 researchers and three case studies including in-depth interviews with key individuals involved in data collection, analysis and deposition in the fields of soil science, human genetics and digital humanities.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Institutional Repositories as Infrastructures for Long-Term Preservation"

Helena Francke et al. have published "Institutional Repositories as Infrastructures for Long-Term Preservation" in Information Research.

Here's an excerpt:

The study describes the conditions for long-term preservation of the content of the institutional repositories of Swedish higher education institutions based on an investigation of how deposited files are managed with regards to file format and how representatives of the repositories describe the functions of the repositories.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"A Trust Framework for Online Research Data Services"

Malcolm Wolski, Louise Howard, and Joanna Richardson have published "A Trust Framework for Online Research Data Services" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

There is worldwide interest in the potential of open science to increase the quality, impact, and benefits of science and research. More recently, attention has been focused on aspects such as transparency, quality, and provenance, particularly in regard to data. For industry, citizens, and other researchers to participate in the open science agenda, further work needs to be undertaken to establish trust in research environments. Based on a critical review of the literature, this paper examines the issue of trust in an open science environment, using virtual laboratories as the focus for discussion. A trust framework, which has been developed from an end-user perspective, is proposed as a model for addressing relevant issues within online research data services and tools.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Digital 3D Objects in Art and Humanities: Challenges of Creation, Interoperability and Preservation: White Paper

The PARTHENOS project has released Digital 3D Objects in Art and Humanities: Challenges of Creation, Interoperability and Preservation: White Paper .

Here's an excerpt:

With this White Paper, which gathers contributions from more than 25 experts of 3D imaging, modellng and processing, as well as professionals concerned with the interoperability and sustainability of research data, the PARTHENOS project aims at laying the foundations of a comprehensive environment centered on the researchers' practices concerning 3D digital objects. The topics addressed in the document are meant to help to ensure the development of standardized good practices relating to the production, the handling, the long-term conservation and the reuse of 3D objects.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Developing Criteria to Establish Trusted Digital Repositories"

John Faundeen has published "Developing Criteria to Establish Trusted Digital Repositories" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper details the drivers, methods, and outcomes of the U.S. Geological Survey’s quest to establish criteria by which to judge its own digital preservation resources as Trusted Digital Repositories. . . . The methods entailed seeking existing evaluation criteria from national and international organizations such as International Standards Organization (ISO), U.S. Library of Congress, and Data Seal of Approval upon which to model USGS repository evaluations. Certification, complexity, cost, and usability of existing evaluation models were key considerations. The selected evaluation method was derived to allow the repository evaluation process to be transparent, understandable, and defensible; factors that are critical for judging competing, internal units. Implementing the chosen evaluation criteria involved establishing a cross-agency, multi-disciplinary team that interfaced across the organization.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"GI+100: Long Term Preservation of Digital Geographic Information—16 Fundamental Principles Agreed by National Mapping Agencies and State Archives"

Carsten Rönsdorf et al. have published "GI+100: Long Term Preservation of Digital Geographic Information—16 Fundamental Principles Agreed by National Mapping Agencies and State Archives" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper states 16 principles for the long term retention and preservation of digital geographic information. The paper is mainly aimed at public sector geographic information providers in Europe (particularly those involved in mapping and cadastre) with the intention of highlighting the significance of fundamental concepts for digital geographic data archiving. Geographic information providers include mapping agencies and archives that preserve geographic data among a wider range of digital information. A supplementary objective is that the paper may provide useful information for providers of all types of geographic information right around the world.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Stories from the Past Web"

Yasmin AlNoamany, Michele C. Weigle, and Michael L. Nelson have self-archived "Stories from the Past Web."

Here's an excerpt:

Archiving Web pages into themed collections is a method for ensuring these resources are available for posterity. Services such as Archive-It exists to allow institutions to develop, curate, and preserve collections of Web resources. Understanding the contents and boundaries of these archived collections is a challenge for most people, resulting in the paradox of the larger the collection, the harder it is to understand. Meanwhile, as the sheer volume of data grows on the Web, "storytelling" is becoming a popular technique in social media for selecting Web resources to support a particular narrative or "story". There are multiple stories that can be generated from an archived collection with different perspectives about the collection. For example, a user may want to see a story that is composed of the key events from a specific Web site, a story that is composed of the key events of the story regardless of the sources, or how a specific event at a specific point in time was covered by different Web sites, etc. In this paper, we provide different case studies for possible types of stories that can be extracted from a collection. We also provide the definitions and models of these types of stories.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Software Preservation Network (SPN): A Community Effort to Ensure Long Term Access to Digital Cultural Heritage"

Jessica Meyerson et al. have published "The Software Preservation Network (SPN): A Community Effort to Ensure Long Term Access to Digital Cultural Heritage" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The Software Preservation Network (SPN) is a National Forum grant project funded by IMLS which seeks to gather cultural heritage community input and develop a roadmap for actionable steps towards a national software preservation strategy. To achieve this, the project team conducted a needs assessment, partnered with legal experts, and convened a Forum, all focused on software preservation for cultural heritage. After the Forum produced a Community Roadmap, several Forum attendees gathered around the Roadmap's areas of focus, and coalesced into functioning working groups. The authors wish to acknowledge everyone who has contributed to the project, whether they were study participants, email correspondents, Forum attendees, blog post authors, or working group members. At its heart, the SPN project was a community building effort to address a community-wide challenge.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Digital Public Library of America and the National Digital Platform"

Emily Gore et al. have published "The Digital Public Library of America and the National Digital Platform" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. In order to do this, DPLA has had to build elements of the national digital platform to connect to those institutions and to serve their digitized materials to audiences. In this article, we detail the construction of two critical elements of our work: the decentralized national network of "hubs," which operate in states across the country; and a version of the Hydra repository software that is tailored to the needs of our community. This technology and the organizations that make use of it serve as the foundation of the future of DPLA and other projects that seek to take advantage of the national digital platform.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Research Data Management And Services: Resources for Novice Data Librarians"

Sarah Barbrow, Denise Brush, and Julie Goldman have published "Research Data Management And Services: Resources for Novice Data Librarians" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

As RDM services become more common, academic librarians are often asked by their library administrators to start offering these services locally. Most librarians have no experience in managing research data at any point in the research life cycle. They need ways to educate themselves on the job through targeted professional development programs and self-directed training. The purpose of this article is to point librarians to a variety of Internet resources, including training materials, courses, and social and online communities, to get up to speed on RDM.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 7 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Outside The Box: Building a Digital Asset Management Ecosystem for Preservation and Access"

Andrew Weidner, Sean Watkins, Bethany Scott, Drew Krewer, Anne Washington, and Matthew Richardson have published "Outside The Box: Building a Digital Asset Management Ecosystem for Preservation and Access" in Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The University of Houston (UH) Libraries made an institutional commitment in late 2015 to migrate the data for its digitized cultural heritage collections to open source systems for preservation and access: Hydra-in-a-Box, Archivematica, and ArchivesSpace. This article describes the work that the UH Libraries implementation team has completed to date, including open source tools for streamlining digital curation workflows, minting and resolving identifiers, and managing SKOS vocabularies. These systems, workflows, and tools, collectively known as the Bayou City Digital Asset Management System (BCDAMS), represent a novel effort to solve common issues in the digital curation lifecycle and may serve as a model for other institutions seeking to implement flexible and comprehensive systems for digital preservation and access.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Organizational Resilience in Data Archives: Three Case Studies in Social Science Data Archives"

Kristin R. Eschenfelder and Kalpana Shankar have published "Organizational Resilience in Data Archives: Three Case Studies in Social Science Data Archives" in the Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper, we draw upon organizational studies theories to approach the issue of sustainability from an organizational perspective, focusing specifically on the organizational histories of three social science data archives (SSDA): ICPSR, UKDA, and LIS. Using a framework of organizational resilience to understand how archives perceive crisis, respond to it, and learn from experience, this article reports on an empirical study of sustainability in these long-lived SSDAs. The study draws from archival documents and interviews to examine how sustainability can and should be conceptualized as on-going processes over time and not as a quality at a single moment.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

ETD+ Toolkit

The Educopia Institute’ has released the ETD+ Toolkit .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The ETD+ Toolkit provides free introductory training resources on crucial data curation and digital longevity techniques. It has been designed as a training series to help students and faculty identify and offset risks and threats to their digital research footprints.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers’ Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services"

Elizabeth A. Berman has published "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services" in the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

This article reports on the integrated findings of an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design aimed to understand data management behaviors and challenges of faculty at the University of Vermont (UVM) in order to develop relevant research data services. The exploratory sequential mixed methods design is characterized by an initial qualitative phase of data collection and analysis, followed by a phase of quantitative data collection and analysis, with a final phase of integration or linking of data from the two separate strands of data. A joint display was used to integrate data focused on the three primary research questions: How do faculty at UVM manage their research data, in particular how do they share and preserve data in the long-term?; What challenges or barriers do UVM faculty face in effectively managing their research data?; and What institutional data management support or services are UVM faculty interested in?

See also: "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Findings from the Qualitative Phase" and "An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers' Data Management Practices at UVM: Findings from the Quantitative Phase."

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

LEARN Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management

LEARN has released the LEARN Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

For research performing organisations, this deluge of data presents many challenges in areas such as policy and skills development, training, costs and governance. To help address these issues, today LEARN is publishing the final draft of its Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Reference Rot in the Repository: A Case Study of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) in an Academic Library"

Mia Massicott and Kathleen Botter have published "Reference Rot in the Repository: A Case Study of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) in an Academic Library" in Information Technology and Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

This study examines ETDs deposited during the period 2011-2015 in an institutional repository, to determine the degree to which the documents suffer from reference rot, that is, linkrot plus content drift. The authors converted and examined 664 doctoral dissertations in total, extracting 11,437 links, finding overall that 77% of links were active, and 23% exhibited linkrot. A stratified random sample of 49 ETDs was performed which produced 990 active links, which were then checked for content drift based on mementos found in the Wayback Machine. Mementos were found for 77% of links, and approximately half of these, 492 of 990, exhibited content drift. The results serve to emphasize not only the necessity of broader awareness of this problem, but also to stimulate action on the preservation front.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

A Tour of the Research Data Management (RDM) Service Space. The Realities of Research Data Management, Part 1

OCLC Research has released A Tour of the Research Data Management (RDM) Service Space. The Realities of Research Data Management, Part 1.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Realities of Research Data Management is a four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle.

In this introductory report, we provide some brief background on the emergence of RDM as a focus for research support services within higher education, and present a simple framework describing three major components of the RDM service space:

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Discovering Scholarly Orphans Using ORCID"

Martin Klein and Herbert Van de Sompel have self-archived "Discovering Scholarly Orphans Using ORCID."

Here's an excerpt:

Archival efforts such as (C)LOCKSS and Portico are in place to ensure the longevity of traditional scholarly resources like journal articles. At the same time, researchers are depositing a broad variety of other scholarly artifacts into emerging online portals that are designed to support web-based scholarship. These web-native scholarly objects are largely neglected by current archival practices and hence they become scholarly orphans. We therefore argue for a novel paradigm that is tailored towards archiving these scholarly orphans. We are investigating the feasibility of using Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) as a supporting infrastructure for the process of discovery of web identities and scholarly orphans for active researchers. We analyze ORCID in terms of coverage of researchers, subjects, and location and assess the richness of its profiles in terms of web identities and scholarly artifacts. We find that ORCID currently lacks in all considered aspects and hence can only be considered in conjunction with other discovery sources. However, ORCID is growing fast so there is potential that it could achieve a satisfactory level of coverage and richness in the near future.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap