UKOLN News

Michael Day of UKOLN has contributed a chapter to a new book on Web archiving published by Springer. Edited by Julien Masanès of the European Archive, “Web Archiving” looks at, among others, the issues of selection, collection methods, access, use and long-term preservation. Michael investigates the long-term preservation of Web content, focusing on the need for trusted repository infrastructures and the adoption of appropriate preservation strategies with supporting metadata.

UKOLN currently has vacancies for two posts to support deployment of digital repositories and shared infrastructure services within the UK higher education community. The closing date for both applications is 26 January 2007.

Emma Tonkin, Interoperability Focus Officer at UKOLN, will be giving a poster presentation on the topic of “A discount approach to the Semantic Web” at the Semantic Web Applications and Perspectives (SWAP) Conference in Pisa.

A new JISC briefing paper on digital preservation has been published. It offers an introduction to the topic of digital preservation in terms of continued access to authentic digital assets. The briefing paper also defines digital preservation and its relationship with digital curation, outlines policy and strategy requirements, and identifies the essential roles and responsibilities that a preservation strategy should address. The paper was authored by Maureen Pennock, DCC research officer at UKOLN.

Brian Kelly recently gave a short presentation at the 2006 “StarGazing Conference” held at the University of Edinburgh. The theme of the conference was “Social technologies: from pioneers to mainstream use?”. Slides from his presentation are available.