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Software developers and digital librarians are working in partnership to tackle how best to preserve the vast piles of academic data held in hard drives, desk drawers and filing cabinets around the country.

Their efforts will help ensure that hundreds of thousands of articles, databases and research findings – which might otherwise be lost – are made accessible for future generations.

Beginning today, a conference, funded by JISC and hosted by the University of Edinburgh, will see researchers exchange ideas on the best way this data might be collected, stored and made accessible. Preserving the data and making it easily accessible will mean researchers are less likely to repeat work that has already been done by other academics.

The event is a grass-roots 'unconference', with group improvisation sessions, soapbox slots, as well as more standard presentations, modelled to some extent on the recent and successful JISC-CRIG unconference. The conference – the Edinburgh Repository Fringe – takes place today and tomorrow and will feature archivists and repository developers from across the UK.

Professor Jeff Haywood, the University of Edinburgh’s Vice Principal for Knowledge Management, said: “This event will help improve universities’ ability to retain and share their knowledge."This event will help improve universities’ ability to retain and share their knowledge".

“When their funding runs out, researchers don’t always ensure that their research archives are available for future use. This event will provide a forum for digital archivists to exchange best practice on how we can ensure that these archives and results are accessible by successive generations.”

Professor Haywood said the event would be a milestone in knowledge management, bringing together the different approaches of researchers working in the field. “Anyone is welcome to come along to take part in discussions, give briefings and discuss the future of repositories,” he said.

For further information on the Repository Fringe