Category: Digital Curation & Digital Preservation

NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grants

The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting grant proposals for its Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program.

Here's an excerpt from the program guidelines:

Applications may be submitted for projects that address one or more of the following activities:

  • arranging and describing archival and manuscript collections;
  • cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving images, art, and material culture;
  • providing conservation treatment (including deacidification) for collections, leading to enhanced access;
  • digitizing collections;
  • preserving and improving access to born-digital sources;
  • developing databases, virtual collections, or other electronic resources to codify information on a subject or to provide integrated access to selected humanities materials; . . . .
  • developing tools for spatial analysis and representation of humanities data, such as atlases and geographic information systems (GIS); and
  • designing digital tools to facilitate use of humanities resources.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Research Data Curation Bibliography

Digital Scholarship has released the Research Data Curation Bibliography. It includes over 100 selected English-language articles and technical reports that are useful in understanding the curation of digital research data in academic and other research institutions.

Most sources have been published from 2000 through 2011; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included.

The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works. If such versions are unavailable, italicized links to the publishers' descriptions are provided.

It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010: "If you're looking for a reading list that will keep you busy from now until the end of time, this is your one-stop shop for all things digital preservation."— "Digital Preservation Reading List," Preservation Services at Dartmouth College weblog, February 21, 2012. | Digital Scholarship |

University of Maine to Launch Digital Curation Graduate Certificate Program in September 2012

The University of Maine will launch a digital curation graduate certificate program in September 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Digital Curation program is a two-year graduate certificate, taught online, intended for professionals working in museums, archives, artist studios, government offices, and anywhere that people need to manage digital files. The program walks students through the phases of managing digitized or born-digital artifacts, including acquisition, representation, access, and preservation. . . .

The Digital Curation program has been developed by interdisciplinary team of ten faculty from across the campus, from departments as diverse as Art, Computer Science, History, New Media, and Spatial Engineering, as well as institutions such as Fogler Library, the Folklife Center, and Hudson Museum.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010: "If you're looking for a reading list that will keep you busy from now until the end of time, this is your one-stop shop for all things digital preservation."— "Digital Preservation Reading List," Preservation Services at Dartmouth College weblog, February 21, 2012. | Digital Scholarship |

ESIP "Interagency Data Stewardship/Principles" and "Interagency Data Stewardship/Citations/Provider Guidelines" Approved

The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners has approved its "Interagency Data Stewardship/Principles" and "Interagency Data Stewardship/Citations/Provider Guidelines."

Here's an excerpt from "Data Management and the ESIP Federation" by Ruth Duerr:

Why do I think that this was significant? Simply because it represents the first time that a large and diverse set of US Mission agencies, data centers, research groups, commercial companies, tool developers, and even individuals have come together and agreed that data stewardship is important. They saw it to be important enough to codify into standard practices for data and recognized that data citation is something that needs to become part of the culture of science and that it is past time to make that happen.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Research Data Stewardship at UNC: Recommendations for Scholarly Practice and Leadership

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science has released Research Data Stewardship at UNC: Recommendations for Scholarly Practice and Leadership.

Here's an excerpt:

This working report emanates from efforts to identify policy options for digital research data stewardship at UNC. In January 2011, the UNC Provost charged a task force on the stewardship of digital research data to make recommendations about storage and maintenance of digital data produced in the course of UNC-based research (see Appendix 1 for the task force charge). During the 2011 calendar year, the task force conducted an environmental scan of research data stewardship policies and trends, discussed issues, collected data on campus using interviews and a survey, and developed a set of principles and associated courses of action for the campus to consider (see Appendix 2 for a list of task force meetings). We believe that the principles are in concert with the UNC mission and its academic plan and can serve as the basis for policies and implementations. We recognize, however, that scholarly data and processes are highly diverse and that the technologies and economics of stewardship are changing rapidly. We thus view the implementation alternatives and recommendations here as first steps in what should be an ongoing process that serves the research data stewardship needs of scholars, the campus, and humanity. We offer this document as a working report that we hope will serve as an adaptable framework for research data stewardship across disciplines at UNC and beyond.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010: "If you're looking for a reading list that will keep you busy from now until the end of time, this is your one-stop shop for all things digital preservation."— "Digital Preservation Reading List," Preservation Services at Dartmouth College weblog, February 21, 2012. | Digital Scholarship |

States of Sustainability: A Review of State Projects Funded by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)

The Library of Congress has released States of Sustainability: A Review of State Projects Funded by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) by Christopher A. Lee.

Here's an excerpt:

This report summarizes findings of a review of the NDIIPP state projects. The process has involved analysis of project deliverables and documentation, individual engagement with project participants at conferences and professional events, visits to the lead partner sites for all four projects, and monitoring of project activities and announcements.

Read more about it at the "States of Sustainability: The NDIIPP Preserving State Government Information Initiative" post.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010: "If you're looking for a reading list that will keep you busy from now until the end of time, this is your one-stop shop for all things digital preservation."— "Digital Preservation Reading List," Preservation Services at Dartmouth College weblog, February 21, 2012. | Digital Scholarship |

Future Proofing: Enabling Practical Preservation of Born-Digital Records

JISC has released Future Proofing: Enabling Practical Preservation of Born-Digital Records.

Here's an excerpt:

The results show that is it possible to build a low-cost, practical solution that addresses immediate preservation problems, makes use of available open source tools, and requires minimal IT support. We think the results of the case study can feasibly be used by other Institutions facing similar difficulties, and scaled up to apply to the preservation of other and more complex digital objects. It will enable non-specialist information professionals to perform certain preservation and information management tasks with a minimum of preservation-specific theoretical knowledge.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"The Privacy Implications of Digital Preservation: Social Media Archives and the Social Networks Theory of Privacy"

Jasmine E. McNealy has self-archived "The Privacy Implications of Digital Preservation: Social Media Archives and the Social Networks Theory of Privacy" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper seeks to analyze whether SNS [Social Networking Sites] users can claim a right to privacy with respect to their online communications. To do so, this paper will examine the privacy implications of the LOC Twitter archive in light of Strahilevitz's social network theory of privacy. First, this article briefly discusses the LOC Twitter archive. Next, this article explores the online networking phenomenon and the privacy implications associated with social media. Third, this article examines privacy, in particular Strahilevitz's social networks theory of privacy. Part four analyzes whether a challenge to the LOC Twitter archive based on a theory of invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts or intrusion would succeed under the social network theory of privacy. This article concludes with considerations for digital archives in relation to protecting personal privacy.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Presentations from the Curation in the Cloud Workshop

Presentations from the Curation in the Cloud Workshop are now available.

Here's an excerpt from the conference web page:

The aim of this 2-day workshop is to assess the potential and practicalities of using cloud-based solutions for the curation and long-term preservation of digital materials, focusing particularly on data that originates from research or that supports research processes. What will particularly be of value is to engage stakeholders from a number of different types and scales of organisations, encompassing those that are able to rely on established and joined-up institutional infrastructures; alongside those who may have more fragmented or immature local measures in place to manage data.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Guidelines for a Long-Term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata

The Digitising Contemporary Art project has released Guidelines for a Long-Term Preservation Strategy for Digital Reproductions and Metadata.

Here's an excerpt:

These Guidelines for a long-term preservation strategy for digital reproductions and metadata explains how to preserve digital materials such as text, images and video. It gives a theoretical introduction to the subject as well as practical examples of how to manage a collection of digitised and born-digital artworks. . . .

These Guidelines are intended to be used by participants of the DCA project, but can also be used by other institutions in the process of digitising their collections. The different elements of digital preservation are explained in a basic and accessible way that is not too technical. Together with some examples from real life situations and recommendations for practical tools, this approach should give the basics needed for collection managers to create a suitable preservation policy and plan. It is important to keep in mind that digital preservation is a continuous process that has to be regularly re-evaluated by the collecting institution.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

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 |