JISC

Rachel Bruce, JISC programme director, began the session by saying the issue of digital preservation is a key theme of the newly updated JISC strategy, and something that is central to the ongoing development of the Information Environment.

Helen Hockx-Yu, JISC programme manager, gave an overview of JISC digital preservation activities by saying that an important strand of this work was the support of institutional efforts in this area.

Current feasibility and scoping studies were looking to assess preservation risks and requirements and were looking at web resources, e-prints, learning resources, e-science data, e-journals and much more.

National services funded by JISC include the Arts and Humanities Data Service (co-funded by the AHRC), the UK Data Archive (with the ESRC), the Digital Curation Centre (with the UK e-science core programme), which all in different areas promote expertise and good practice in the field of digital preservation. 

Projects from various programmes since 2003 had engaged institutions directly in examining, testing or implementing emerging tools and standards, strategies and business models in an operational environment.

JISC also works in collaboration with national and international bodies, since, said Ms Hockx-Yu, ‘digital preservation is a global issue.’ Involvement in the UK Web Archiving Consortium, the Digital Preservation Coalition and formal partnership with the British Library, are, she continued, important examples of this work.

"Digital preservation is a global issue"

Maureen Pennock, research officer at the Digital Curation Centre, said some important synthesis work was currently being undertaken on the work of the Digital Preservation and Asset Management programme which is coming to an end. This work is pulling out lessons from the work of the programme and presenting them back to the community.

The programme funded 11 projects. Key themes that were common to all or most projects include the question of the digital lifecycle, while a number of recurring elements were highly visible to the projects as a whole, such as legal issues, cultural issues, repositories and preservation and policies and strategies.

The projects were responsible for a wide range of outputs for institutional use, such as tools, assessments and surveys, cost and business models, guidance on the many legal issues faced in the field of digital preservation, new understanding on cultural issues and the place of metadata in relation to the issue of repositories and preservation.

One of the most valuable output from the projects, said Ms Pennock, were the case studies. These gave insight into institutional challenges. In many cases they were an integral part of the projects. Training is another key feature, she continued. The many stakeholders involved in the issue of digital preservation and curation need training and many of the outputs of the projects addressed this need directly, from comprehensive training packages to non-technical guidance.

"All projects had made new and unexpected insights"

The programme has achieved its goals, said Ms Pennock. All projects had made new and unexpected insights. All had promoted the issue of digital preservation at both national and international levels. All had made connections between key organisations in the field, leading to more and better communication, between groups, stakeholders and sectors. 

A key funding of the programme has been that while preservation is but one stage in the digital lifecycle, it needs to be funded separately in order to become the priority it needs to be. Ms Pennock ended the session by saying that a full synthesis report will be available at the end of the month.