UKOLN News

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.

Julie Allinson of UKOLN is giving a presentation on the Eprints Application Profile to this meeting on Monday 4 December 2006. The event has been organised by the Cataloguing and Indexing Group Scotland in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland and the Centre for Digital Library Research.

A further Technology Watch briefing paper has been added recently to the Digital Curation Centre website by Maureen Pennock. This technology watch paper provides an introduction to the features and functionality of the Fedora digital object repository management system.

In his closing address to the 2nd International Digital Curation Conference this afternoon, Chris Rusbridge announced the publication of the International Journal of Digital Curation, a journal entirely devoted to papers, articles and reports on curation of digital objects and related issues.

Liz Lyon, DCC Associate Director (Outreach), will give the opening keynote address on the second day of the 2nd International Digital Curation Conference being held in Glasgow over 21-22 November 2006. Her address is entitled “Reflections on Open Scholarship: Process, Product and People”.

Brian Kelly recently co-facilitated the Accessibility Summit II meeting held in York. A group of leaders in the field of accessibility have agreed to call on the public sector to rethink policy and guidelines regarding accessibility on the Web for people with a disability. Read Kevin Carey”s report, originally published in the E-Government Bulletin (issue 226, 13 November 2006).

Brian Kelly recently co-facilitated the Accessibility Summit II meeting held in York. A group of leaders in the field of accessibility have agreed to call on the public sector to rethink policy and guidelines regarding accessibility on the Web for people with a disability. Read Kevin Carey”s report, originally published in the E-Government Bulletin (issue 226, 13 November 2006).

The DCC, in conjunction with the University of Liverpool, is holding an Information Day on Institutional Repositories on 4 December 2006. Maureen Pennock of UKOLN will be speaking about establishing an institutional repository and the Repositories Support Project. Registration for this event is now open.

JISC has announced that it has approved funding for a further three years from March 2007 for the Digital Curation Centre. Director of the DCC Chris Rusbridge welcomed the extension of funding, and the confidence demonstrated by JISC in the work of the DCC: “We see that digital data are being taken ever more seriously across science and scholarship today. The changes introduced in our plans for DCC Phase 2 will help us get the message across even better on how to curate data for use now and in the future”.