Today is my last day working as Digital Archivist at Lancaster University so I thought I would take a little time to reflect on my three years here; the highlights and what I have learnt in my time here.
Tag: digital preservation
International Archives Day
Today is International Archives Day where everyone involved in preserving archives, records, data – whatever your take – celebrates the work that is happening worldwide to ensure the preservation of our memory and heritage and the protection of our rights by documenting decisions and building the foundations for good governance.
Two days in the City
I was lucky enough to have two days in London last week to attend two separate but linked events: the first was a Jisc sponsored workshop on Digital Appraisal and the second an Archivematica UK User group meet up. It was a nice balance of activities, Day One was around the theory of how we decide what to keep or what to throw away and Day Two was about sharing experiences of using Archivematica – a digital preservation tool which can potentially help us with aspects of this.
International Digital Preservation Day
What’s that about then?
International Digital Preservation Day 30th November 2017 #IDPD2017
What’s that about then?
Digital Archivists are a much misunderstood lot.
A lot of people think our work on digital preservation must be something to do with digitising old documents but this is absolutely not the case. Of course digitising old documents is fantastic and the wonderful resources which are now increasingly available on the internet like (and there are so many examples these are just some of my favourite ones) Charles Booth’s London or the Cambridge Digital Library . There are thousands and thousands useful for scholars, historians, students, teachers, genealogists, journalists – well just about anyone really who is interested in getting access to sources that would otherwise be near impossible to access. Digitising archive and library content has revolutionised the way we access and interact with archives, manuscripts and special collections.
Reflections on PASIG 2017
It was fantastic to see PASIG 2017 (Preservation and Archives Special Interest Group) come to Oxford this year which meant I had the privilege of attending this prestigious international conference in the beautiful surroundings of Oxford’s Natural History Museum. All slides and presentations are available here.
From Planning to Deployment: Digital Preservation and Organizational Change June 2017
We were very excited to be visiting the lovely city of York for the Digital Preservation’s event “From Planning to Deployment: Digital Preservation and Organizational Change”. The day promised a mixture of case studies from organisations who have or are in the process of implementing a digital preservation programme and also a chance for Jisc to showcase some of the work they have been sponsoring as part of the Research Data Shared Services project (which we are a pilot institution for).
Jisc Research Data Shared Services March 2017
Here at Lancaster University we are very excited to be part of a group of pilot institutions taking part in Jisc’s Research data shared services project. This aims to provide a flexible range of services which suit the varied needs of institutions in the HE sector help achieve policy compliance for deposit, publication, discovery, storage and long term preservation of research data. It’s an ambitious project but one that there is an undoubted need for and we are trying to work with Jisc to help them achieve this goal.
Last week we were invited down to Jisc London HQ to learn about the progress of the project and – just as importantly – share our own thoughts and experiences on the process.
Continue reading Jisc Research Data Shared Services March 2017
Researchers: what do they really think?
Well… it’s probably quite hard to get to the truth of the matter but here at Lancaster we are trying to find out what researchers really think. This is crucial for developing and improving our services and vital for delivering the service our researchers want.
We are one of the organisations taking part in the JISC RDM Shared Services pilot and you can read their take on the work being done here. With JISC’s help we undertook a researcher survey to find out a bit more about the kinds of research data which were being produced, how the data were (or weren’t) being managed and researcher attitudes towards their data.
Acting On Change: Pericles/DPC Conference and DPA Awards London 2016
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Pericles/DPC Conference: Acting on Change at the Wellcome Institute in London. The theme of the conference was moving forward with digital preservation; in other words taking steps beyond just the technical tools and looking outward instead of inward. There were excellent keynotes and panel sessions and useful and thought-provoking workshops. PERICLES (Promoting and Enhancing Reuse of Information through the Content Lifecycle) is a EU funded four year project which seeks to address the issues of managing digital preservation in an ever changing world.
Continue reading Acting On Change: Pericles/DPC Conference and DPA Awards London 2016
Research Data Alliance UK Workshop, Birmingham 2016
I attended the first Research Data Alliance workshop held in sunny Birmingham which was designed to bring together practitioners from across the UK to find out more about the work of the RDA. It was also a chance to see how we might be able to contribute and benefit from what the organisation has to offer. Despite already being a member of the RDA Interest Groups for Archives and Records Professionals, I confess to having been more of a casual observer than an active participant. So it was a brilliant opportunity to find out more about exactly what the Research Data Alliance is, how it works and what it hopes to achieve.
Continue reading Research Data Alliance UK Workshop, Birmingham 2016