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Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is an important component of a cyclical design process that allows cost savings and promotes accountability of designers, owners, and users, as well as allowing identification of facilities issues and informed decision-making. It is reasonable to expect that the combined effect of new data-gathering technologies and the increasing urgency of sustainable building design will be that POE studies will increase and, eventually, be applied at a mass scale. Digital Curation (DC) allows for the long-term preservation and constant re-use of research data. Yet there has been no attempt so far to develop a DC strategy for POE data. This paper introduces the concept of Digital Curation and relates it to objective, quantitative POE data. A combination of a literature review and a questionnaire sent to expert respondents is utilised in order to identify data types and major Digital Curation issues relevant to POE. A Digital Curation Model (DCM) for POE data is presented, drawing from the existing models, examples, and best practice available, intended to act as a framework that enables the storage, archiving, management, recovery and utilisation of such data on a mass scale. Finally, the importance, benefits, obstacles and implications of developing a suitable DC strategy for Post-Occupancy Evaluation are discussed.

With the inclusion of the digital in the suite of on-site interpretation experiences now available at many war memorials, long-standing tensions between education, commemoration and tourism are amp...

This article aims to illustrate the process behind the building of the KSH digital collections webpage by highlighting the research endeavour carried out by cataloguers and digital curators. It als...

The article presents a research study that examined the ways in which digital curation promotes personalized learning, as well as the students’ experiences of this learning process. The study was c...

A definition of flipped learning by the Flipped Learning Network identifies ‘The Four Pillars of F-L-I-P™’; Flexible learning environment, a change in Learning cultures, Intentional content, and the Professional educator. This case study concentrates on the ‘I’ and ‘P’, intentional content and the professional educator. Appreciative Inquiry is used to explore, from both a student and staff perspective, the following questions: when does learning and teaching start? what is our role in developing the online environment? what is the impact on our own academic practice in both the online and face-to-face learning environments? what is recognised and respected as ‘teaching’ and what is recognised as ‘learning’? and by whom? This case study will offer some recommendations relating to intentional content and the role of a professional educator that could be interpreted into most flexible learning approaches concluding with a model for a different mind-set for developing the online environment.

This book, written for the absolute beginner, has two parts – a general introduction followed by a series of project-orientated chapters. The introduction begins with clear definitions of digitizat...

This article explores the interplay of the ‘live’ experience of drama learning in the classroom and curated digital content on learner meaning making, collaborative creation and subjectivities. It examines a case study conducted in an inner-city secondary school in Sydney, Australia, as part of a larger innovative international collaborative drama exercise entitled ‘The Water Reckoning Project’ (http://www.water-reckoning.net) which focussed on sustainability education. Data collected and analysed included ethnographic observations, video documentation and digital curation of students’ creative work, focus groups, and pre- and post-surveys. Findings of this study reveal the importance of the aesthetically charged, embodied experience of drama as the key driver of learning when integrating drama with digital technologies. This unique project enabled students to critically and creatively engage with significant real and fictional contexts, as well as issues of local and global relevance.

The use of high-speed broadband and internet-enabled television sets (smart TVs) for movies, news, documentaries, and television programs, amongst other services – for the convenience of the listen...

Digital preservation is a complex field that is rapidly maturing and increasingly focusing on content as well as the human element of digital preservation. This conceptual article examines a number of digital preservation models meeting a variety of needs created by different communities. Given the guidance these models have afforded digital preservation, considering the present, and looking to the future, this article proposes a tri-partite model for thinking about digital preservation in an era of robust community involvement: the Digital Preservation Triad. The Triad focuses on 1) Management, including elements relating to documentation and human resources; 2) Technology; and 3) Content.

Digital humanities (DH) represents an emerging framework for digital curation. This study focuses on the evolving relationship of the DH (including history) to digital curation and archives and describes the models of collaboration in the digital environment. A conceptual framework is presented, followed by discussions of scarcity and abundance, archival frameworks, models of collaboration, and a review of selected DH projects. Despite the semantic disagreements over the term archives, researchers and curators should consider each other's perspectives for continued collaboration.

Building digital curation and sustainability into digital humanities project development is challenging, and engaging digital humanities researchers fully as partners in curation practices with the library is even more so. How can we represent the longevity and sustainability of digital humanities research projects as a shared responsibility between faculty and student researchers and library staff? Northeastern University Libraries Digital Scholarship Group has designed a series of tools and workflows to ease the burden of sustainable development, support community engagement with digital materials, and enable the library and its partners to work together to build sustainable digital projects.

This edited volume of essays challenges the performing arts bias for post-structuralist critiques of the archive as a centre of logocentric authority. It will appeal to theatre and performance scho...

With Digital Curation for Libraries and Archives, Stacy T. Kowalczyk provides an indispensable textbook for library school professors and students on collecting, managing, describing and most impor...

Collection preservation is essential for the cultural status of any city. However, presenting a collection publicly risks damage. Recently this drawback has been overcome by digital curation. Described here is a method of digitisation using photogrammetry and virtual reality software. Items were selected from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow archives, and implemented into an online learning module for the Open University. Images were processed via Agisoft Photoscan, Autodesk Memento, and Garden Gnome Object 2VR. Although problems arose due to specularity, 2VR digital models were developed for online viewing. Future research must minimise the difficulty of digitising specular objects.

Curation is a key mechanism of sociality in a digital era. With an abundance of information, sifting, sorting, selecting, hiding, and standing out become laborious tasks. While researchers have diligently documented people’s curatorial strategies, digital curation remains undertheorized in its own right. I therefore theorize digital curation by disentangling productive curation from consumptive curation, addressing how people curate content that they share, and that which they consume. I embed these agentic curatorial practices within structural bounds, both social and technological. In doing so, I offer a basic theoretical model that captures a dynamic relationship between individual curators, their social networks, and technological design.

The Internet has been the catalyst for the convergence of many subject areas and online platforms. Information professionals such as Archivists, IT developers and especially Librarians have been impacted in the development and promotion of digital humanities content for research, teaching, and learning in the modern academic library. In this case study, relevant findings from research that sought to determine the level of awareness of digital humanities in Irish Libraries is examined. The research project, The Mary Martin Diary, is highlighted as an example of a multidisciplinary collaboration project that utilized library communication skills, project management skills, digital humanities tools and techniques, as well as other online resources in its development. These skills and tools have the potential to be applied to similar projects that librarians engage in. Recommendations derived from this research highlight the practical application of skills for information professionals and their roles...

Column Editor's NotesThe “Digital Heritage: Spotlight on Europe” column examines technological advances internal and external to cultural institutions. The digital shift radically changed how cultural heritage is made, disseminated, distributed, accessed, consumed, and monetized. One of the most important revolutions is that the user.s role changed dramatically, shifting from passive observers to active participants and content producers with many new and exciting opportunities for engagement, creative use, and access. Interested authors are invited to submit proposals and articles to the column editor at annamaria.tammaro@unipr.it. Please include “IILR submission” in the subject line of the email.

Digital Curation Fundamentals provides a concise overview of the theory and practice of digital curation in libraries and archives. The book is organized according to a series of nine questions rel...

Background: The Internet has quickly become a primary source and channel for distributing a multitude of health messages. To ensure health messages are effective and well-received, health communication researchers are constantly seeking new communication strategies to improve health literacy. One of the challenges associated with the widespread availability of online information is a saturated environment with many different messages. To build a trustworthy relationship with consumers, health communicators and other professionals must successfully filter the massive amounts of health information and create succinct and easily consumable health messages. Methods: Curation is an emerging strategy that uses a systematic and refined process to create such messages and prevent mixed messaging and information overload. Through this process information is collected, developed, stored, and shared. Results: The purpose of this article is to: (1) explain online content curation; (2) describe the e-health co...

Digital collecting of public policy resources such as reports, discussion papers, evaluations and datasets (also known as grey literature) is still very low in Australia and as a result users find it difficult and time consuming to access the research resources they need. The Internet has profoundly changed how we produce, use and collect research and information for public policy and practice, with grey literature and data playing an increasingly important role. Reports, discussion papers, briefings and many other resources produced and published by organisations, without recourse to the commercial or scholarly publishing industry, are a key part of the evidence used for public policy and practice. Yet finding and accessing this material can be a time-consuming task made harder by poor production and management of resources and the lack of digital collecting services. Even knowing what is being collected and what collections exist is a difficult task. Based on research conducted as part of the Grey Literature Strategies ARC Linkage project, this article reports on the results of online surveys of users, producers and collectors of policy and research information with a particular focus on the results for collecting services. It discusses the state of collecting digital grey literature in Australia and the issues that need to be addressed to maximise the value of this public asset.

This paper explores how online actions such as the practice of digital self-writing shape our offline identity. We start with an examination of the concept of hupomnemata – a practice of self-writing in which notes are kept as a ‘material record of things read, heard, or thought’ in the intent of shaping the self [Foucault (1997). Self writing. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics, subjectivity and truth. The essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984. Volume 1 (pp. 207–222). New York, NY: The New Press p. 209] – before arguing that the practice of digital content curation can be understood as a modern-day variant of the Greco-Roman hupomnemata. Although the work of the digital curator is conducted online, this paper positions contemporary curatorial practices as acts of self-exploration, self-cultivation, and self-care, which nourish offline identity and which ultimately work to shape the offline, corporeal self.

Digital curation is an emerging topic of interest in museum studies. On-site museum experience enhanced by digital technology can not only promote the social and educational roles of traditional museums in the digital era but also boost the value of cultural heritage. Our objective is to design an on-site personalized museum recommendation system to extend the connection between visitors and collections, focusing on the user experience. The prototype is made up of two different functional components, a mobile user interface (UI) at the front-end for visitors to interact with the collections during their visit, and an object database in the back-end where information is stored and accessed using semantic technology. In this article, we discuss the design of the UI for the collection of Australian paintings in the National Gallery of Australia, and evaluate the framework for visitor behaviour capture and analysis using the interface, thereby proposing a system for establishing a personalized tour trajectory.

In December 2012, the University of Saskatchewan Library's University Archives and Special Collections acquired the complete image collection of Courtney Milne, a professional photographer whose worked encompassed documentary, abstract and fine art photographs. From acquisition to digital curation, the authors identify, outline, and discuss the various points at which key decisions were made in order to make this extensive collection available to the public via an online database. Issues include decisions on administrative control over the workflow, the level of description needed, and the equipment, software, and technical formats required for digitization and display. In particular, the authors discuss how the format of the work influenced issues surrounding reproduction rights, access and use in unanticipated ways.

This paper will explore some of the views that were expressed during the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) workshop held in cooperation with the UK's Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in March 2014. The event provided an ideal opportunity to assess librarians' views on the changing research data management landscape and to consider how these changes might affect the role of academic librarians in South Africa. The paper compares these views with experiences garnered through the DCC's work to support universities in the UK.

(2014). The Implications of Social Media. Cultural and Social History: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 329-333.

There is a tremendous amount of information available to consult for digital curation guidance and tools. The extensive appendix of resources and the bibliography (not to mention the 23 pages of no...

This study examines the digital curation awareness and practice of a sample of practitioners from the UK performing arts community. Twelve performance arts practitioners from across the United Kingdom were interviewed to establish understanding of whether, why and how they create and manage digital objects in the course of their creative work. Detailed qualitative data from this series of one-to-one interviews about the actual and intended digital curation practices of these performance arts practitioners establish what they understand about sustainable management of digital objects, and also which digital curation activities they actually include in their working processes. This knowledge is supplemented with some preliminary exploration of the types of digital resources that are sought and used by performance arts practitioners, in order to understand whether there is a comparable appetite for the creation and for the reuse of digital objects in this field. Questions in the interview identify the sources used by practitioners when attempting to access digital objects created by others as part of research for their own creative work. This provides a ‘practitioner's-eye view’ of performance collections; that is to say, the resources used by practitioners as collections for research, irrespective of the formal designation or intended purpose of such resources. Here, this enquiry is set into the broader context of digital curation and preservation. The approach to the interviewing is described, findings are discussed and the presence of possible skills and knowledge gaps is presented. Concluding remarks indicate the implications of these indicative findings for the representation of performance arts practice for current and future generations, and suggest useful future areas of enquiry.

In spite of significant efforts to align policies and technologies to enable digital preservation, one commentator has recently noted that a shortage of money is the greatest threat to the long term future of our digital heritage. This article describes the work of an EC-funded project, the Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation (4C), with particular reference to a gap analysis and stakeholder needs survey which have been completed and early drafts of an Economic Sustainability Reference Model which is now available for comment. All of this will help the project to offer a “Curation Costs Exchange” service.

Since its foundation in 2002, the Digital Preservation Coalition has published a series of topical Technology Watch Reports that provide an authoritative introduction to recognized challenges associated with maintaining access to data and digital materials in the long term. The series fills a strategic gap between emerging research and actual professional practice, and it strongly reflects the needs of the DPC's members. Commissioned from recognized domain experts, they identify and track developments in IT, as well as the standards and tools that inhibit or enable digital preservation. The reports are thoroughly peer-reviewed and scrutinized by the DPC membership prior to publication to ensure they are informed, current, concise, and balanced. They are available to all and are intended as a lasting and helpful contribution to knowledge exchange.

The rise of the GeoWeb and the proliferation of volunteered geographic information (VGI) have permanently changed the volume and types of geospatial data available for consumption. This has simultaneously altered the role of data curation and information provision roles of geographic information librarians (GILs). The purpose of this paper is to provide a succinct history of geospatial data services in libraries and a discussion of current challenges encountered by information professionals with the GeoWeb. The paper concludes with an overview of the importance of incorporating the GeoWeb into future geospatial data curation training.

The aim of this research was to define competences for digital curators, and to validate a Delphi process in the context of Library, Archives, Museum curriculum development. The objective for the study was to obtain consensus regarding competence statements for Library, Archives and Museum digital curators.The Delphi method, a research technique, typically used to develop a consensus of opinion for topic areas in which there is little previously documented knowledge, was used in specifying the digital curator competences in LAM context. Three rounds of questionnaires with controlled feedback with space for comments and/or suggestions were sent to panel members. Five point Likert scale was employed in the questionnaire. Consensus was determined when a competence statement received a mode higher than 3, an average mean more than 3.5, and a standard deviation smaller than 1.0.Response rates for rounds I, II and III were: 70% (n = 16), 87.5% (n = 14), and 94% (n = 15) respectively. Of the 18 digital c...

Data curation is one way that libraries are extending traditional services to meet the changing needs of patrons. Requirements from research funders have placed increased pressure on grant recipients to create Data Management Plans and to securely store raw data. Research universities have stepped up to provide comprehensive data support services. Despite discrepancies in funding and staff, smaller institutions can similarly provide robust services by focusing on their strengths, such as interdepartmental collaboration, flexibility, and rapid turnaround time. This article details how librarians at Trinity University adapted the larger practice of curation to meet local data management needs.

Research libraries provide a significant portion of the open access materials available on the Internet, and an examination of the efforts of one such library will illustrate the role of these institutions in creating the current information environment. The Virginia Tech University Libraries established the Scholarly Communications Project (SCP) even before the Gopher protocol opened up databases housed at research libraries to librarians with Internet access. The SCP was primarily intended to take advantage of evolving technologies to produce and distribute academic journals without the costs associated with traditional publishing, and that journal archive, the EJournals, is still at the heart of what has become the Digital Library and Archives (DLA).

The concept of digital content curation (often referred to simply as digital curation; the term “content” is inserted here to avoid confusion with the work of digital archivists) is an increasingly...

This essay explores content management challenges facing oral history in the digital age. We offer a fluid, variable model for evaluating curatorial choices and options in particular situations, asserting that usually the best-practice question has only one answer—it depends. We then apply our curatorial model to a broader range of digital-age issues, from transcription to open-source software. We suggest the limited value of, or necessity for, posing either/or choices. We argue against deferring action while waiting for the perfect technology to emerge. Our basic advice is: you can only steer a bicycle when you’re riding it, and the only way to ride it is to start pedaling.

Data curation is a concept with many facets. Curation goes beyond research-generated data, and its principles can support the preservation of institutions’ historical data. Libraries are well-positioned to bring relevant expertise to such problems, especially those requiring collaboration, because of their experience as neutral caretakers and information professionals. This article details how one university library partnered with various campus entities, specifically the Office of Alumni Relations and the Photographic Services Department, as well as the Division of University Advancement, to further two data curation projects involving university yearbooks and a historical negative and photograph collection. Collaboration was necessary in order to achieve the desired result: the ongoing management and preservation of these resources for their promotional worth and as tools for scholarly research. These efforts allowed for the digitization, management, and preservation of the original resources as well as...

This article provides a case study of work performed at King's College London to survey information management practices, policies, and procedures applied by data creators and managers within three research units and three business units, and to determine the risk factors that may limit access and use of their digital assets over time. The assessment framework adopted to assess practices brings together components of the Data Asset Framework to analyze ad hoc data handling processes performed within departments, and combines it with the system-level Digital Repository Audit Methodology Based on Risk Assessment evaluation framework to identify the potential risks that may occur and the consequences to the institution or individual unless action is taken. It was found that data management activities within the academic units are comparable to a curate's egg, containing many actions performed in conformance to best practice, but also including poorly considered approaches that have the potential to restrict ...

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the University of Florida, the Price Library launched the first stage of a project to digitize an important, special collection of anniversary editions of Jewish newspapers from around the world. This article provides the history of the collection, need for this project, steps involved in digitization and digital collection building, and future events based on the feedback to the initial project, which will include outreach, subsequent individual and collaborative digital collection development projects, online exhibits, and more.

Digital libraries, whether commercial, public, or personal, lie at the heart of the information society. Yet, research into their long-term viability and the meaningful accessibility of their contents remains in its infancy. In general, as we have pointed out elsewhere, “after more than twenty years of research in digital curation and preservation the actual theories, methods and technologies that can either foster or ensure digital longevity remain startlingly limited.” Research led by DigitalPreservationEurope DPE and the Digital Preservation Cluster of DELOS has allowed us to refine the key research challenges—theoretical, methodological and technological—that need attention by researchers in digital libraries during the coming five to ten years, if we are to ensure that the materials held in our emerging digital libraries are to remain sustainable, authentic, accessible and understandable over time. Building on this work and taking the theoretical framework of archival science as bedrock, this article investigates digital preservation and its foundational role if digital libraries are to have long-term viability at the center of the global information society.

Libraries are becoming more involved in the complex task of managing the digital assets created by members of their institutions. Many tools have been created to help librarians understand and solve the problems associated with this task. One of these tools is the Joint Information Systems Committee's Assessing Institutional Digital Assets (AIDA) toolkit, which is designed to help institutions assess their current readiness and ability to manage digital assets. This article provides a review and evaluation of the AIDA toolkit as used by Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library.

Toni Sant’s collection is both necessary and frustrating. With the rapid increase in digital curation of performance, books that broaden the global perspectives and theoretical foundations for our ...

Embarking on a digital curation programme can be a daunting prospect as it is thought to be an expensive and complex endeavour, beyond the capability and resources of most archives. Added to this is the fact that the overabundance of resources now available is almost as much of a deterrent to those entering the field as the lack of resources was 10 years ago. This article, based on a paper given to the Society of Archivists' Conference in 2010, will discuss why the fear might be, to a certain extent, unjustified, and how organizations can take the first steps towards developing systems and procedures for managing digital objects in their care. Using work carried out at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland as an example, it will focus on issues relating to the development of ingest systems and procedures and will raise a number of questions relating to acquisition and appraisal of digital collections that would benefit from further discussion within the archival community.

Given the desire to maintain both long-term renderability and meaningfulness of data for reuse, increasing attention is being paid to contextual metadata, also known as significant properties. Both the data reuse and digital curation literatures identify significant properties but do not appear to build on one another, in part because of different methodological approaches. In this paper we discuss the significant properties research from both literatures and call for a more integrative approach. We conclude with a discussion of our project, Dissemination Information Packages for Information Reuse (DIPIR), which features the boundary spanning we advocate between these two research communities.

This article reviews the literature concerning the use and perception of podcasts as an information resource within higher education and libraries. Three types of podcasts are defined: institutional podcasts, episodic podcasts, and audiobooks. All podcasts share common issues concerning discovery and access and digital curation. The authors suggest that podcasts should be included in academic library collections, as research has shown that podcasts are becoming a trusted information resource.

Gloucestershire Archives has developed SCAT (‘Scat is Curation And Trust’) which is a digital curation workbench tool for archivists in local government archive services. SCAT enables learning about digital curation by ‘doing’. In addition to learning through practice, SCAT provides for practice based advocacy relating to digital continuity. SCAT addresses the digital curation lifecycle including monitoring the performance of a trusted dark store provider and ‘producing’ digitally based material for user access. Gloucestershire Archives has made SCAT freely available. It is hoped that other archive services can experiment with SCAT and more effectively join in digital curation developments.

Museums, libraries, and archives are creating and acquiring a growing volume of digital resources, including collection documentation, digitized versions of holdings, and original born-digital collections. All these institutions need information professionals who can manage and preserve digital resources and work with colleagues in their own and other institutions to meet the public's increasing expectation of finding the information they want online. All types of cultural heritage institutions will benefit from taking an interest in the education of a new generation of information professional with skills in digitization, digital archiving and preservation, and what is now being called ‘digital curation’ – the ability to add value to digital assets for use and re-use over the long term. These new professionals may also have disciplinary expertise that enhances their value to cultural heritage institutions, and they may forge new career paths that cross traditional boundaries among libraries, arc...

While ‘convergence’ has been a topic of much discussion in the museum, archive, and library communities, the emerging similarities between these three types of cultural heritage institutions – most apparent in their on-line activities – are not yet evident in the education of professionals who work in them. Curriculum models still support traditional definitions of the roles, functions, and audiences of archives, libraries, and museums. Professional practice can evolve in the context provided by digital heritage and digital curation, and respond in a manner that supports common goals across institution types. New inter-disciplinary foci for professional training can provide skills needed across the sector, while respecting the distinct histories, cultural roles, and responsibilities of libraries, archives, and museums.

This dialogue provides a summary and assessment of issues discussed relating to research libraries and research universities in a digital environment.

Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2016 takes place every 2 years, and was held this year at the University of Zadar, in Zadar, Croatia, from June 13–17, 2016. Each LIDA, two themes are chosen in advance. This year, the themes were “Digital Curation and Preservation: Current Trends and Research” and “Use Studies, Education, and Training for Digital Library Collections.” A presentation of each theme by university professors and subsequent keynotes relevant to each theme by two world-renowned experts provided context and ensured a shared perspective among LIDA attendees. Conference-goers were presented a balanced approach to theoretical and practical questions in a number of areas of digital libraries, including the presentation of research on information seeking practices among special communities, data mining projects, the exploration of platforms and experiences, and digitization. Additionally, a number of the contributed papers, panels, demonstrations, and workshops spanned the two themes, ma...