DiSCmap : digitisation of special collections mapping, assessment, prioritisation. Final project report

Traditionally, digitisation has been led by supply rather than demand. While end users are seen as a priority they are not directly consulted about which collections they would like to have made available digitally or why. This can be seen in a wide range of policy documents throughout the cultural heritage sector, where users are positioned as central but where their preferences are assumed rather than solicited. Post-digitisation consultation with end users isequally rare. How are we to know that digitisation is serving the needs of the Higher Education community and is sustainable in the long-term? The 'Digitisation in Special Collections: mapping, assessment and prioritisation' (DiSCmap) project, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Research Information Network (RIN), aimed to:- Identify priority collections for potential digitisation housed within UK Higher Education's libraries, archives and museums as well as faculties and departments.- Assess users' needs and demand for Special Collections to be digitised across all disciplines.- Produce a synthesis of available knowledge about users' needs with regard to usability and format of digitised resources.- Provide recommendations for a strategic approach to digitisation within the wider context and activity of leading players both in the public and commercial sector.The project was carried out jointly by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) and the Centre for Research in Library and Information Management (CERLIM) and has taken a collaborative approach to the creation of a user-driven digitisation prioritisation framework, encouraging participation and collective engagement between communities.Between September 2008 and March 2009 the DiSCmap project team asked over 1,000 users, including intermediaries (vocational users who take care of collections) and end users (university teachers, researchers and students) a variety of questions about which physical and digital Special Collections they make use of and what criteria they feel must be considered when selecting materials for digitisation. This was achieved through workshops, interviews and two online questionnaires. Although the data gathered from these activities has the limitation of reflecting only a partial view on priorities for digitisation - the view expressed by those institutions who volunteered to take part in the study - DiSCmap was able to develop:- a 'long list' of 945 collections nominated for digitisation both by intermediaries andend-users from 70 HE institutions (see p. 21);- a framework of user-driven prioritisation criteria which could be used to inform current and future digitisation priorities; (see p. 45)- a set of 'short lists' of collections which exemplify the application of user-driven criteria from the prioritisation framework to the long list (see Appendix X):o Collections nominated more than once by various groups of users.o Collections related to a specific policy framework, eg HEFCE's strategically important and vulnerable subjects for Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics.o Collections on specific thematic clusters.o Collections with highest number of reasons for digitisation

Institutional repositories for higher educational institutions: A new opportunity for Academic Libraries

Digital information created for pedagogical and research purposes is gaining traction, and there is a growing interest within academic institutions to gather, archive, and provide value-added services based on this content. The term institutional repository refers to a novel system for storing and sharing digital academic works produced by students and teachers at different educational institutions. It was conceived as a solution to the issues plaguing the present model of scholarly communication, which is dominated by for-profit journal publishers and suppliers. Libraries will need to hire librarians with knowledge of digital collection management and the Open Archive Information System (OAIS) to ensure the successful implementation of these repositories. Some of the new responsibilities for libraries include teaching students and teachers how to use OAIS, assisting them in the creation of digital products, incorporating them into the formulation of institutional policy, and establishing objectives for institutional repositories

e-Science at the University of Minnesota: a collaborative approach

In 2008 the University of Minnesota Libraries formed the E-science and Data Services Collaborative (EDSC). The group was formed amid an environment of emerging initiatives related to e-science at the University, and was intended to leverage our existing expertise, such as our nationally recognized assessments of researcher behavior, to develop new capacity and engage with campus partners to support e-science and data services. We will report on the EDSC’s progress to date, including the following four areas of focus: • A Data Stewardship Report assessing requirements for support of e-science and data services, determining gaps in our capacity, and seeking out opportunities to develop necessary expertise including data curation, data preservation, data policies and virtual organizations. • A staff education program assessing the needs of libraries staff related to e-science and data services to establish a position description framework that includes E-scholarship: a potential new model for library liaison roles across campus that supports interdisciplinary and data intensive research. • In coordination with the University’s Research Cyberinfrastructure Alliance (members include the Libraries, Office of Information Technology, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Minnesota Super Computing Institute), a two-phased plan for a Web Development project that defines our core services and areas of expertise in “data services” in the context of other campus services and initiatives. • Increasing campus awareness of data management issues through the creation of a library Web site and skills-based workshop for faculty, students and researchers about data management best practices and university policies, including those that support open data initiatives

Lirolem: A virtual studio/Institutional Repository for the University of Lincoln

Gives an account of the Lirolem project at the University of Lincoln which was to build a repository capable of handling multimedia material as well as providing a repository for the University's research output

Do librarians have a shared set of values? A comparative study of 36 codes of ethics based on Gorman's Enduring Values

Thirty-six ethical codes from national professional associations were studied, the aim to test whether librarians have global shared values or if political and cultural contexts have significantly influenced the codes' content. Gorman's eight core values of stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access to recorded knowledge and information, privacy and democracy were used as a benchmark. A quantitative analysis was carried out of which values each code contained. The codes were further qualitatively analysed, to examine how each value was expressed. It was found that on average codes featured five of Gorman's eight values. The most popular values were: service, privacy, equity of access, stewardship and intellectual freedom. The least popular value was rationalism, across all codes. Some codes omitted certain values because of their specific focus, such as the Native American code. Codes varied in how values were expressed, for example some codes limited principles by law, while some did not. Expression of stewardship and democracy was found to be stronger in countries which have recently experienced conflict or colonialism. The relationship between the profession and the state was another area of variation. Countries in the Asia-Pacific put more emphasis on the power of the State

Open access to scholarly communications: advantages, policy and advocacy

The Open Access (OA) movement regards OA modes of disseminating research as the unequivocal future of scholarly communication. Proponents of the open access movement itself have, over the last ten years, carried out systematic research to show how OA can tangibly benefit researchers, institutions and society at large. Even so, the number of research papers being uploaded to OA institutional repositories remains relatively low, frequently based on concerns which often contradict the facts. Policies for OA have been introduced to encourage author uptake, and these are also discussed here. Briefly delineating aspects of these phenomena, this paper will then move on to outline and discuss advocacy for OA in organisations, and whether this should be “downstream”, in the form of informational campaigns, or “upstream”, in the form of top-down change management. This paper seeks to make a contribution to these issues in the OA sphere, by brining into the debate strands from the literature of the sociology of science and management science that will hopefully elucidate aspects of author reactions to OA, and the perceived changes that its adoption gives rise to

DRIVER Technology Watch Report

This report is part of the Discovery Workpackage (WP4) and is the third report out of four deliverables. The objective of this report is to give an overview of the latest technical developments in the world of digital repositories, digital libraries and beyond, in order to serve as theoretical and practical input for the technical DRIVER developments, especially those focused on enhanced publications. This report consists of two main parts, one part focuses on interoperability standards for enhanced publications, the other part consists of three subchapters, which give a landscape picture of current and surfacing technologies and communities crucial to DRIVER. These three subchapters contain the GRID, CRIS and LTP communities and technologies. Every chapter contains a theoretical explanation, followed by case studies and the outcomes and opportunities for DRIVER in this field

Case Study: IQRA faculty for computer studies

المستودعات المؤسسية هي بنية تحتية بحثية أساسية لمخرجات العلمية للجامعات .تمتلك المستودعات المؤسسية ذو الأبعاد المناسبة القدرة على زيادة تأثير البحوث وتعزيز صورة وتاثير المؤسسة من خلال عرض وفتح مخرجاتها الاكادمية لجمهور أوسع. في البداية ، تم تطوير أنظمة المستودعات كحل مستضاف عبر الإنترنت لجمع وحفظ ونشر المخرجات العلمية للجامعات والكليات والمؤسسات البحثية الأخرى. في الآونة الأخيرة ، تم تطوير البرامج وتطورت المستودعات إلى منصات نشر للمؤسسات لعرض مخرجاتهم العلمية بما في ذلك المقالات والكتب والأطروحات والمجلات. كان الهدف من هذا الدراسة تصميم وتطوير مستودع رقمي على شبكة الإنترنت لتخزين ونشر المواد العلمية – أطروحات, أوراق علمية - لكلية دراسات الكمبيوتر في International University of Africa ، مما يوفر حل دائم للحاجة إلى نظام فعال وموثوق ويمكن الوصول إليه بسهولة لتخزين واسترجاع هذه المواد العلمية مما يجعل الدراسة والبحث أقل تعقيدًا وأقل إجهادًا للموظفين الأكاديميين والطلاب ، وبالتالي تمكينهم من تنفيذ أعمالهم والأنشطة اليومية بسهولة ، لا سيما فيما يتعلق بالحصول على المعلومات العلمية ذات الصلة بسرعة. ومن النتائج التي تم تحقيقها; الرقمنة الكاملة للأطروحات والرسائل الجامعية وفتحها أمام جمهور أوسع للاستفادة منها مع زيادة تأثير تلك الأعمال الأكاديمية في نفس الوقت; تزويد منتسبي الكلية- أعضاء هيئة التدريس والطلاب- القدرة على أرشفة أعمالهم عبر الإنترنت باستخدام حساباتهم التي أنشأها مسؤول النظام لهم. في النهاية ، حقق النظام المطور الأهداف الرئيسية للدراسة ولكن أيضًا التحسينات والتطويرات المستقبلية يمكن اضافتها بسهولة في النظام الحالي

Becoming the authoritative source: taking repositiories centre stage

Institutional repositories can be a storehouse of the research of an institution. There are many internal and external needs to find, use and report on the entirety or parts of an institution’s research output. This paper examines how to harness environmental factors to make an institutional repository the central and authoritative source of the research material output of a university. How to take it from “a place” to put research to making it “the place” and moving it from a nice-to-have service to one with a solid, sustainable future, one that the academic community values, supports and uses rather than sees as yet another administrative burden. A key value of research material is its authoritativeness. Researchers want to be able to say “this is my paper” or “this is the corpus of my research”. Research organisations want to be able to say the equivalent for all their researchers. The value of this identification is not just an assertion of authorship. It is also valued because the material can be authoritatively used to feed research discovery services and e-portfolios, fulfil reporting requirements to government and funders, substantiate promotions and back-up grant applications, and assist with benchmarking academic success in any given field. There are also many other uses for a repository.. The UNSWorks repository at the University of NSW will be used as a case study for this paper. The factors that can support the role of a repository as the authoritative source of research output are evaluated. The implications for interoperability with other institutional and external systems are identified, as are the resource implications and how success can be measured

Digital archives at MU : the J-School and beyond

As the J-School prepares to celebrate its centenary in 2008, it is also heading toward a digital crossroads. The new Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, with its mandate to explore new frontiers of news gathering in the Digital Age, will train the next generation of journalists in a host of technologies that are already wreaking fundamental changes in the profession. Even as the very existence of traditional newspapers is increasingly called into question, the University of Missouri is poised to produce visionary leaders and practitioners who will guide journalism and publishing through the current technological upheaval into the next hundred years. Web pages, video, RSS feeds, pod- and videocasts, and delivery devices yet to be invented will be there to challenge and inspire students and faculty in their state-of-the-art new facility. And where will all this multimedia journalism end up? News archives, famously the in-box for the first draft of history, must also rise to the requirements of this flood of digital output. Unfortunately, the fragility of digital information in any form is a threatening paradigm in its own right. There are no assurances that any digital content produced tonight by any newspaper will survive in its database or on its CD-ROM disks for ten or fifteen years, let alone the next hundred. The complexity of current media (revisit the list above: web pages, video, RSS feeds, pod- and videocasts and those media still to be invented) only work to shorten that time frame. For all the technological wonders the J-School will be producing, the legacy of that material is at best unknown, and at worst, vanished. I hope this short statement of the seriousness of digital preservation issues will set the stage for the rest of this report