NEH Preservation and Access Research and Development Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting proposals for its Preservation and Access Research and Development grants program.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

NEH especially encourages applications that address the following topics:

  • Digital Preservation: how to preserve digital humanities materials, including born-digital materials;
  • Recorded Sound and Moving Image Collections: how to preserve and increase access to the record of the twentieth century contained in these formats; and
  • Preventive Conservation: how to protect humanities collections and slow their deterioration through the use of sustainable preservation strategies.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

G. Sayeed Choudhury Given 2012 Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library Technology

G. Sayeed Choudhury has been given the 2012 Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library Technology.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Mr. Choudhury was selected by the award jury for his leadership in the field of data curation through the National Science Foundation-supported Data Conservancy project, which expands the capabilities of research libraries in serving researchers and the institutions of which they are a part, and for his ongoing impact on the field of librarianship in applying the principles of librarianship to the curation and preservation of digital data. He is the Associate Dean for Research Data Management and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University. He is also the Director of Operations for the Institute of Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) based at Johns Hopkins. In addition, he is a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI), the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Council, the DuraSpace Board and a Senior Presidential Fellow with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"The Informatics Transform: Re-engineering Libraries for the Data Decade"

Liz Lyon has published "The Informatics Transform: Re-engineering Libraries for the Data Decade" in the latest issue of the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper, Liz Lyon explores how libraries can re-shape to better reflect the requirements and challenges of today's data-centric research landscape. The Informatics Transform presents five assertions as potential pathways to change, which will help libraries to re-position, re-profile, and re-structure to better address research data management challenges. The paper deconstructs the institutional research lifecycle and describes a portfolio of ten data support services which libraries can deliver to support the research lifecycle phases. Institutional roles and responsibilities for research data management are also unpacked, building on the framework from the earlier Dealing with Data Report. Finally, the paper examines critical capacity and capability challenges and proposes some innovative steps to addressing the significant skills gaps.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"Digital Curation and the Cloud"

Brian Aitken, Patrick McCann, Andrew McHugh, Kerry Miller have self-archived "Digital Curation and the Cloud" in Enlighten.

Here's an excerpt:

Digital curation involves a wide range of activities, many of which could benefit from cloud deployment to a greater or lesser extent. These range from infrequent, resource-intensive tasks which benefit from the ability to rapidly provision resources to day-to-day collaborative activities which can be facilitated by networked cloud services. Associated benefits are offset by risks such as loss of data or service level, legal and governance incompatibilities and transfer bottlenecks. There is considerable variability across both risks and benefits according to the service and deployment models being adopted and the context in which activities are performed. Some risks, such as legal liabilities, are mitigated by the use of alternative, e.g., private cloud models, but this is typically at the expense of benefits such as resource elasticity and economies of scale. Infrastructure as a Service model may provide a basis on which more specialised software services may be provided.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Harvard Library to Deposit about 200,000 Public Domain Volumes in HathiTrust

The Harvard Library will deposit about 200,000 public domain volumes in HathiTrust.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Harvard Library will deposit approximately 200,000 public domain volumes in HathiTrust, a shared digital repository for published materials. This follows Harvard's first deposit of approximately 53,000 volumes in HathiTrust in 2011.

"The Harvard Library is committed to collaboration and easing access to its materials. Partnerships like this create significant opportunities for research libraries to lead during a period of rapid changes in higher education and scholarship in the digital age, and for researchers to benefit from their initiative" said Mary Lee Kennedy, Harvard's senior associate provost for the Library.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

A New Day for Website Archiving 2.0

The Association of Research Libraries has released A New Day for Website Archiving 2.0.

Here's an excerpt:

A central issue in the fair use analysis is whether the use is "transformative." Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994). In the website archiving context, the question is whether a library's reproduction and subsequent display of entire websites without material alteration is "transformative." The case law and legal opinions discussed below all indicate that library website archiving for the purpose of preservation and scholarship is transformative as that term is used by courts in the fair use context.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Data Curation Curriculum Search Engine

The Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship has made the Data Curation Curriculum Search engine available.

Here's an excerpt:

The Data Curation Curriculum Search is a database of programs and courses covering data curation and closely related fields. The tool and all research has been conducted by the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. This site is part of the broader impacts goals of the Data Conservancy project, a National Science Foundation collaboration under the Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners (DataNet) program under the Office of Cyberinfrastructure. The larger Data Conservancy vision entails scientific data curation as a means to collect, organize, validate, and preserve data so that researchers can address research challenges facing society as a whole. To help further this vision, this site was designed to:

  • help researchers, administrators, and educators understand more generally the scope of education in the data curation area;
  • support the search for collaborators in the area of data curation;
  • help determine how peers are defining key terms across institutions; and
  • as an awareness and potential research tool.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Review of Data Management Lifecycle Models

Alex Ball has self-archived Review of Data Management Lifecycle Models in the University of Bath institutional repository.

Here's an excerpt:

The importance of lifecycle models is that they provide a structure for considering the many operations that will need to be performed on a data record throughout its life. Many curatorial actions can be made considerably easier if they have been prepared for in advance – even at or before the point of record creation. For example, a repository can be more certain of the preservation actions it can perform if the rights and licensing status of the data has already been clarified, and researchers are more likely to be able to detail the methodologies and workflows they used if they record them at the time.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Preserving Email

The Digital Preservation Coalition has released Preserving Email.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Gareth Knight of King's College London welcomed the report. 'Preserving Email provides an excellent overview of the topic, drawing together observations made in a number of research projects to provide a succinct overview of the legal, technical, and cultural issues that must be addressed to ensure that these digital assets can be curated and preserved in the long-term. Its conclusion, providing a set of pragmatic, easy-to-understand recommendations that individuals and institutions may apply to better manage their email archive, highlights the complexity of email preservation. It also sends a clear message that it is something that everyone can perform.'

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Data-Intensive Research: Community Capability Model Framework (Consultation Draft)

The Community Capability Model for Data-Intensive Research project has released a consultation draft of the Community Capability Model Framework.

Here's an excerpt:

The Community Capability Model Framework is a tool developed by UKOLN, University of Bath, and Microsoft Research to assist institutions, research funders and researchers in growing the capability of their communities to perform data-­-intensive research by

  • profiling the current readiness or capability of the community,
  • indicating priority areas for change and investment, and
  • developing roadmaps for achieving a target state of readiness.

The Framework is comprised of eight capability factors representing human, technical and environmental issues. Within each factor are a series of community characteristics that are relevant for determining the capability or readiness of that community to perform data- intensive research.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Rendering Matters—Report on the Results of Research into Digital Object Rendering

Archives New Zealand has released Rendering Matters—Report on the Results of Research into Digital Object Rendering.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

Maintaining the ability of an organisation or user to be able to "open" or "render" a file or set of files is one of the core digital preservation challenges. This report outlines the results of research investigating whether changes are introduced to the information that is presented to users when files are rendered in different hardware and software environments. The report concludes with a set of observations about the impact of the research and provides some recommendations for future research in this area.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Access: Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age

The European Commission has released the Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age.

Here's an excerpt:

Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89%) and limited library budgets (85%) were signalled as the most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1,000 respondents (90%) supported the idea that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even higher number of respondents (91%) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific publications. Self-archiving ("green OA") or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing ("gold OA") were identified as the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving ("green OA"), what the desirable embargo period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56% of respondents (although 25% disagree with this option).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Digital Preservation: The Digital Dilemma 2: Perspectives from Independent Filmmakers, Documentarians and Nonprofit Audiovisual Archives

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released The Digital Dilemma 2: Perspectives from Independent Filmmakers, Documentarians and Nonprofit Audiovisual Archives (registration required).

The Academy’s first report, The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials (registration required), is also available.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Preservation: Report on Decision Factors and Their Influence on Planning

The Scalable Preservation Environments project has released the Report on Decision Factors and Their Influence on Planning.

Here's an excerpt:

This report sheds light on the actual decision criteria and influence factors to be considered when choosing digital preservation actions. It is based on an extensive evaluation of case studies on preservation planning for a range of different types of objects with partners from different institutional backgrounds. We analyse objective trees from a number of real-world decision making instances and classify the objectives and decision criteria. We analyse the measurability and required information for decision criteria, and the objectives and decision factors contained in objective trees. We further discuss the mapping of different quality models and map decision criteria to standardised models for decision factors in the areas of software quality, format assessment, and object properties.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

AIMS Born-Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship

The AIMS Project has released AIMS Born-Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship.

Here's an excerpt:

The AIMS project evolved around a common need among the project partners — and most libraries and archives — to identify a methodology or continuous framework for stewarding born-digital archival materials. These materials have been slowly accumulating in archival backlogs for years but are rapidly growing as more contemporary collections are accessioned. . . .

Into this climate, the AIMS partners proposed an inter-institutional framework for stewarding born-digital content. The AIMS partners realized that they could not solve all problems associated with born-digital materials but decided to focus their attention on professional practice defined by archival principles and by the current state of collections at the partner institutions.

In developing the AIMS Framework, the project would apply a practitioner-based research approach by developing a model based on real case studies of collections at each institution. Applying our theories would confirm or challenge the initial framework which could then be used as a model around which to build individual workflows and processes within each partner's organization.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Report on the Data Curation Research Summit

Nicholas Weber et al. have self-archived Report on the Data Curation Research Summit in IDEALS.

Here's an excerpt:

The Data Curation Research Summit was a one-day meeting, sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The objectives were to build awareness of current research projects and important research problems, foster stronger collaborations among researchers, and advance the Library and Information Science (LIS) research agenda in data curation. It was held in Chicago on December 9th, 2010, following the 6th International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC). The conference provided an excellent opportunity to bring together scholars and practitioners with a strong interest in advancing scholarship and practice in the curation of research data. The 35 invited participants, representing iSchools, research libraries, academic publishers, and funding agencies, are active in the growing research community and related areas of digital curation and archives.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

DAITSS (Dark Archive in the Sunshine State) Released under GPL v. 3 License

The Florida Center for Library Automation has released DAITSS (Dark Archive in the Sunshine State) under a GPL v. 3 License.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

DAITSS provides automated support for the functions of Submission, Ingest, Archival Storage, Access, Withdrawal, and Repository Management. It is architected as a set of RESTful Web Services and micro-services but enforces strict controls to ensure the integrity and authenticity of archived content. It implements active preservation strategies based on format-specific processing including, where necessary, normalization and forward migration. It is particularly well suited for materials in text, document, image, audio and video formats.

DAITSS was written for a multi-user environment and supports consortial as well as institutional preservation repositories.

Read more about it at "DAITSS, an OAIS-based Preservation Repository" and "DAITSS Grows Up: Migrating to a Second-Generation Preservation System."

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories

The Council of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) has released Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories, which is a recommended practice.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2002, Research Libraries Group (RLG) and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) jointly published Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities (reference [B2]), which further articulated a framework of attributes and responsibilities for trusted, reliable, sustainable digital repositories capable of handling the range of materials held by large and small cultural heritage and research institutions. . . . .

OAIS included a Roadmap for follow-on standards which included 'standard(s) for accreditation of archives'. It was agreed that RLG and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) would take this particular topic forward and the later published the TRAC (reference [B3]) document which combined ideas from OAIS (reference [1]) and Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities (TDR—reference [B2]).

The current document follows on from TRAC in order to produce an ISO standard.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Curation LinkedIn Group Launched

An open Digital Curation LinkedIn group has been established. (You can also find the group by searching for "digital curation" in the LinkedIn group search function.)

The group's description follows:

In a rapidly changing technological environment, the difficult task of ensuring effective long-term access to digital information is increasingly important. This group discusses digital curation, which the Digital Curation Centre defines as "maintaining, preserving and adding value to digital research data throughout its lifecycle." The DCC's digital curation lifecycle model includes these steps: conceptualise, create, access and use, appraise and select, dispose, ingest, preservation action, reappraise, store, access and reuse, and transform.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Notes of the HathiTrust Constitutional Convention October 8-9, 2011

HathiTrust has released Notes of the HathiTrust Constitutional Convention October 8-9, 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

As a result of these proceedings, HathiTrust:

  • Will establish a governance structure consisting of a Board, a Board Executive Committee, and Board-appointed committees, and will articulate bylaws
  • Will formalize a transparent process for inviting, evaluating, ranking, launching and assessing development initiatives
  • Will establish a shared print monograph archiving program among the member libraries
  • Will expand and enhance access to U.S. federal publications including those issued by GPO and other federal agencies
  • Will develop and vet a fee-for-service model to allow contribution of content from non-partner entities

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

European Commission Issues "Recommendation on the Digitisation and Online Accessibility of Cultural Material and Digital Preservation"

The European Commission has issued a "Recommendation on the Digitisation and Online Accessibility of Cultural Material and Digital Preservation."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In particular, the Recommendation invites Member States to:

  • put in place solid plans for their investments in digitisation and foster public-private partnerships to share the gigantic cost of digitisation (recently estimated at 100 billion EUR). The Recommendation spells out key principles to ensure that such partnerships are fair and balanced.
  • make available through Europeana 30 million objects by 2015, including all Europe's masterpieces which are no longer protected by copyright, and all material digitised with public funding.
  • get more in-copyright material online, by, for example, creating the legal framework conditions enabling large-scale digitisation and cross-border accessibility of out-of-commerce works.
  • reinforce their strategies and adapt their legislation to ensure long-term preservation of digital material, by, for example, ensuring the material deposited is not protected by technical measures that impede librarians from preserving it.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Data Management Planning: Open Source DMPTool Launched by University of California Curation Center and Others

The University of California Curation Center has announced the launch of DMPTool.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The University of California and several other major research institutions have partnered to develop the DMPTool, a flexible online application to help researchers generate data management plans—simple but effective documents for ensuring good data stewardship. These plans increasingly are being required by funders such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF). The DMPTool supports data management plans and funder requirements across the disciplines, including the humanities and physical, medical and social sciences. . . .

The DMPTool is open source, freely available and easily configurable to reflect an institution's local policies and information. Users of the DMPTool can view sample plans, preview funder requirements and view the latest changes to their plans. It permits the user to create an editable document for submission to a funding agency and can accommodate different versions as funding requirements change. Not only can researchers use the tool to generate plans compliant to funder requirements, but institutions also can use the tool to present information and policies relevant to data management and to foster collaboration among faculty, the institutional libraries, contracts and grants offices, and academic computing. . . .

Project partners include the University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library, the UCLA Library, the UC San Diego Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Virginia Library, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, DataONE, and the United Kingdom's Digital Curation Centre. Working collaboratively, these institutions have consolidated their expertise and reduced their costs.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |