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ERIC Number: ED527702
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Mar
Pages: 76
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: ISBN-1-5940-7862-9
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
New Roles for New Times: Digital Curation for Preservation
Walters, Tyler; Skinner, Katherine
Association of Research Libraries
Digital curation refers to the actions people take to maintain and add value to digital information over its lifecycle, including the processes used when creating digital content. Digital preservation focuses on the "series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary." In this report, the authors highlight the intersection of these actions, specifically focusing on how digital curation must facilitate the preservation of shared digital memory. They suggest how research libraries need to be repositioned as vibrant knowledge branches that reach throughout their campuses to provide curatorial guidance and expertise for digital content, wherever it may be created and maintained. They argue that libraries can no longer expect that researchers and scholars will come to them for advice and assistance; libraries must instead find new ways to reach them wherever they may be. Research and learning activities are increasingly intra- and inter-institutional, collaborative, interdisciplinary, international, and virtual. They show how the library must adjust its service offerings to this new landscape in order to remain viable. In the process, they document what they believe is a promising set of emerging roles that libraries currently are carving out in the digital arena. They also highlight and discuss the potential implications of relatively new trends within the research library community, including the outsourcing of services that research libraries have historically provided for their campuses. Finally, they put forward a set of collaborative case studies in the digital curation realm and consider the positive impact of such engagement between research libraries to achieve shared goals. They assert that the strongest future for research libraries is one in which multi-institutional collaborations achieve evolvable cyberinfrastructures and services for digital curation. The alternative, a "go it alone" strategy, will only lead to dangerous isolation for practitioners, yielding idiosyncratic, expensive, and ultimately unsustainable infrastructures. The report gives readers a thorough appreciation of the emerging practice of digital curation for preservation and how research libraries are fostering curatorial practices in order to ensure that their parent institutions continue to realize their core mission of creating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge. Appended are: (1) Disciplinary Considerations for Digital Curation: The Sciences; and (2) Disciplinary Considerations for Digital Curation: The Digital Humanities. Individual chapters contain endnotes. (Contains 1 figure.)
Association of Research Libraries. 21 Dupont Circle NW Suite 800, Washington, DC 20046. Tel: 202-296-2296; Tel: 301-362-8196; Fax: 202-872-0884; e-mail: pubs@arl.org; Web site: http://www.arl.org
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Association of Research Libraries
Identifiers - Location: Alabama; California; Florida
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A