digital curation at the wellcome library: the story so far
Post on 22-Dec-2015
227 views
TRANSCRIPT
Digital Curation at Digital Curation at the Wellcome the Wellcome
Library: The Story So Library: The Story So FarFar
• The Wellcome Library is one of the world's major resources for the study of medical history, 750,000 books, 250,000 pictures
• Archival collections date from antiquity to the present day
• First (known) digital accession received in November 2004
Digital Curation in Action
• 2005-Present
• Current Library Strategy acknowledges the importance of digital material for the future of the Library
• However…funding patterns do not necessarily reflect this!
Digital Preservation System
• Needed a system able to meet the diverse needs of Archivists, Systems Librarians and IT staff
• Lengthy procurement exercise only identified one realistic possibility
• Should we buy an imperfect system today or wait and see if something better comes onto the market tomorrow???
Current Activities• Audit of existing digital holdings
• Cataloguing Digital material
• Educating staff and depositors
• Writing and refining procedures as we go…
Existing Digital Holdings
Cataloguing Digital Material
• Traditional archival cataloguing methods still relevant
• Necessary to adopt a broader approach
• Utilise relationships with donors – they can provide valuable information
• Well educated donors can save you a lot of work!
Judith Langfield’s Diary
Judith Langfield’s Diary
Action on Smoking and Health
• Depositing material since 1991
• Emails and other documents printed out since c.1999
• 2010 – hybrid accession containing materials relating to the “Smoke Free” campaign 2003-2008
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
• November 2008, visited Sanger to give a presentation about digital preservation and ask for volunteers
• Senior Investigator Alex Bateman agreed to give us material
Educating Donors
•Traditionally archives have been transferred at the end of their lifecycle.
• Regular transfers of current material replace “widow’s deposit”
• Digital material not unique – donors can continue to access material that has been archived
Future Plans
• Ultimate aim is to create a hybrid library: paper, born-digital and digitised material together in one collection
•Target key individuals working in medicine and the allied sciences
• Continue to work collaboratively with other organisations. The issue of digital preservation is to big to be solved by one organisation
Natalie Walters, Wellcome Library
Wellcome Library Digital Curation pages:
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node288.html
Libraries@Cambridge, 8th January 2010
Questions?