There are two JISC related digital preservation events coming up that I’m planning to attend. I’ll be hearing about the latest digital preservation initiatives, networking and posting trip reports afterwards.

Firstly there is next Thursday’s Blue Ribbon Task Force event on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access. At the event the Blue Ribbon Task Force will be presenting their final report Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-term Access to Digital Information.

Secondly the 2-day Survive or Thrive conference taking place on Tuesday 8 – Wednesday 9 June 2010 in Manchester. There are still places available for this conference and details below.

Survive or Thrive: Making the most of your digital content

The growth of digital content and use of content on the Web has been rapidly changing over the past decade. The digital deluge poses opportunities as well as challenges. How best are they both to be exploited and managed?

The Survive or Thrive 2010 Conference is being organised by UKOLN is organising the on behalf of JISC to address the questions on this subject that will be of interest to people who have a stake in providing content for learning, teaching and research. This includes policy makers, senior managers, information specialists and technical managers or developers, from both the public and commercial sectors.

Survive or Thrive 2010 will take place at the Macdonald Hotel, Manchester over Tuesday 8 – Wednesday 9 June 2010. It will seek to address a variety of questions including:

• How do we exploit the value of distributed resources? – linked data,
  geospatial tagging, metadata, etc?
• In terms of scale, what are the issues and barriers? What does working
  at Web scale mean and offer?
• What are the issues and opportunities for opening up content?
• How do we effectively and efficiently meet the needs of users and
  taking the best advantage of the available technologies? – for example,
  personalisation?
• How do sectors work together? Education, the cultural heritage sector,
  engaging business and community and the public and private sectors?
  What role should strategic agencies play?

Conference Aims

The aim of the conference is to bring together a community of experts to provide a focus on the above questions. This will support the identification of the key approaches that universities, colleges, the cultural heritage and public sectors can pursue to support education, research and the wider knowledge economy.

Speakers

• Daniel Greenstein
• Mike Ellis
• James Reid
• Tom Heath
• Prof. Sophia Ananiadou
• Chris Linott

Programme

Arrangements are well forward and a draft programme is already available.

Registration

Registration includes all refreshments, lunch and dinner at the event. It also includes a night’s B & B accommodation. To book your place go to:
http//asp.artegis.com/SurviveorThriveopeninvitation

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact:
Natasha Bishop and Michelle Smith
UKOLN Events Team
Tel: 01225 384488
Email: events@ukoln.ac.uk
Web: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/events/

I’m Marieke Guy and I am project manager for the JISC Beginner’s Guide to Digital Preservation project. I am have been interested in digital preservation for some time and previously worked on the Preservation of Web Resources project (JISC-PoWR).

I am a Research Officer at UKOLN, a centre of excellence in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities. I am chair of the Institutional Web Management Workshop, a 3-day annual event for those involved in the provision of institutional Web services. Much of my work involves exploring Web 2.0 technologies and their relevance to the communities we work with. I am remote worker champion for UKOLN and write a blog about my remote working experiences.

More information about me is available from my staff page.

Back in 2009 it was agreed that UKOLN would work on a document which seeks to provide digital preservation information for members of the JISC community who aren’t active in this area. This document will take a straightforward approach to the subject area, be pragmatic and be applicable to those who are new to the topic area. It is intended that the final document will prove to be a core resource for the JISC community.

This project, looking at what the JISC Beginner’s Guide to Digital Preservation will constitute, began at the start of April runs to the end of September 2010. Note that while it is referred to as a document here what exactly it will be is still undecided.

This blog will record the progress of the project. It will be a record of (to quote a colleague) “adventures and discoveries in Digital Preservation land“. It will be the central location for the information and links collected and the connexions made.

Welcome to the JISC Beginner’s Guide to Digital Preservation blog!