KAPTUR: exploring the nature of visual arts research data and its effective management.

KAPTUR (2011-2013), funded by JISC and led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), is a highly collaborative project involving four institutional partners: the Glasgow School of Arts; Goldsmiths, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and the University of the Arts London. The preservation and publication of research data is seen as positive and all UK Research Councils now require it as a condition of funding (RCUK 2012). As a result a network of data repositories are emerging (DataCite 2012a), some funded by Research Councils, others by institutions themselves. However, research data management practice within the visual arts appears ad hoc. None of the specialist arts institutions within the UK has implemented research data management policies (DCC 2011a), nor established research data management systems. KAPTUR seeks to investigate the nature of visual arts research data, making recommendations for its effective management; develop a model of best practice applicable to both specialist arts institutions and arts departments in multidisciplinary institutions; and apply, test and refine the model with the four institutional partners. This paper will explore the nature of visual arts research data and how effective data management can ensure its long term usage, curation and preservation

Yours ever (well, maybe): Studies and signposts in letter writing

Electronic mail and other digital communications technologies seemingly threaten to end the era of handwritten and typed letters, now affectionately seen as part of snail mail. In this essay, I analyze a group of popular and scholarly studies about letter writing-including examples of pundits critiquing the use of e-mail, etiquette manuals advising why the handwritten letter still possesses value, historians and literary scholars studying the role of letters in the past and what it tells us about our present attitudes about digital communications technologies, and futurists predicting how we will function as personal archivists maintaining every document including e-mail. These are useful guideposts for archivists, providing both a sense of the present and the past in the role, value and nature of letters and their successors. They also provide insights into how such documents should be studied, expanding our gaze beyond the particular letters, to the tools used to create them and the traditions dictating their form and function. We also can discern a role for archivists, both for contributing to the literature about documents and in using these studies and commentaries, suggesting not a new disciplinary realm but opportunities for new interdisciplinary work. Examining a documentary form makes us more sensitive to both the innovations and traditions as it shifts from the analog to the digital; we can learn not to be caught up in hysteria or nostalgia about one form over another and archivists can learn about what they might expect in their labors to document society and its institutions. At one time, paper was part of an innovative technology, with roles very similar to the Internet and e-mail today. It may be that the shifts are far less revolutionary than is often assumed. Reading such works also suggests, finally, that archivists ought to rethink how they view their own knowledge and how it is constructed and used. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Long Term Preservation

Electronic Records: A Workbook For Archivists (ICA Study no. 16 ) is a manual produced by the ICA Committee on Current Records in an Electronic Environment (CER, 2000-2004). It addresses the consequences of the fact that, throughout the world, records of all sorts are increasingly produced in electronic form. It takes a practical approach to managing and preserving electronic records throughout their lifecycle. This chapter (Chapter 5) deals with long-term preservation

A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation

This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways."--P. [4] of cove

Changing Trains at Wigan: Digital Preservation and the Future of Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of the emerging digital landscape on long term access to material created in digital form and its use for research; it examines challenges, risks and expectations.

Institutional and organizational features of cross-border cargo traffic in the post-soviet space integration terms. Part I

The article covers the technical, technological, institutional, and organizational barriers of cross-border transportation of cargo. The study uses an institutional approach as a methodological alternative to other approaches. The study touches on institutional and organizational problems of border crossing checkpoints arrangement, the consequences of the application of unified transport documents and the introduction of electronic communication forms. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of demonstrative actions and the daily practice of reducing the time of customs procedures and reducing transaction costs of cross-border cargo traffic. Herewith it is indicated that the most effective way to improve the efficiency of cross-border transportation of cargo suggests simultaneous implementation of technical and institutional innovations. Emphasis is placed on identifying the institutional and organizational features of the international road transportation of cargo, in particular, the problems of the evolution of the guaranteed customs duties payment institute, the permission system in the implementation of cross-border cargo traffic. The fact that the state support of national entrepreneurs requires a mechanism to ensure the parity of Russian and foreign carriers, at least in the field of cargo transportation for state needs, with the involvement of credit resources of government-linked banks is highlighted. It is underlined that the first step towards improving the institutional environment of international road transportation should envisage the elimination of all informal (shadow) relations in this sphere. The article identifies institutional features of cargo transportation in specific areas such as deliveries by road to China through Kazakhstan, and the challenges and prospects for the use and development of transit potential of Kaliningrad Region. The article shows institutional and organizational characteristics of combined transportation in cross-border traffic. The article concludes that the development of cross-border transportation of cargo and the implementation of transport and transit potential of EAEU member states may and should become a powerful source of income for business entities, budgets of all levels and households, as well as the driving force of industrial and technological upgrading and institutional and organizational evolution of economic systems of the countries and integration associations.The article has been prepared with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project № 15-06-06939 a «Modelling the cyclical evolution of mutual influence of the national transport system and the state of the markets of goods (services), labor and capital in terms of integration and global instability»)

JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook

Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008. The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management community”. The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department

Exploring supplementary education: margins, theories and methods.

Existing knowledge of supplementary education, that is education organised and run by political, faith or ethnic groups outside of formal schooling, is patchy. This article is an exploration of the histories of supplementary education in the twentieth century. It is organised into three sections. \ud The article begins by reviewing some existing literature and argues that supplementary education has been a topic of marginal concern for social historians, sociologists and historians of education. This marginal status has often been reflected in the way in which a dominant account of the history of supplementary education has entered the research literature despite a rather selective evidential base. The second section of the article deploys an expansive definition of education, and presents some new historical evidence concerning African Caribbean and Irish supplementary education. A final arguments section reflects on the significance of supplementary education and suggestions some topics for a future research agenda.\u