Digital Curation

The massive increase in digital information in the last decade has created new requirements for institutional and technological structures and workforce skills. Preparing the Workforce for Digital Curation focuses on education and training needs to meet the demands for access to and meaningful use of digital information, now and in the future. This study identifies the various practices and spectrum of skill sets that comprise digital curation, looking in particular at human versus automated tasks.

ecently on Inside/Out, we heard from Assistant Media Conservator Peter Oleksik about MoMA’s efforts to preserve and digitize its collection of analog video art, amassed over the course of four decades. The heroic undertaking of digitizing over 4,000 videotapes was absolutely critical for preservation and access purposes. However, when we digitize analog videotape, we have just begun a new chapter in the artwork’s life, one that is rife with grave challenges and risks that are unique to digital materials.

2015, Vol. 10, No. 1
This paper traces the development of digital and data curation curricula. Due to the brief length of this paper, the focus is on North American initiatives and primarily on continuing education programs. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of professional workshops and the creation of graduate-level courses, certificates, degrees and MOOCs, as well as the role of funding agencies in this process. It concludes with an analysis of what is missing and what is needed to create the workforce required to steward digital assets in the foreseeable future

Some interesting developments are taking place in the Netherlands with regard to (preservation of) the digital heritage. Initiated by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science the Network Digital Heritage (NDE) was set up. The participants in this network are national organizations with large digital collections, like the National Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) , the Institute of Sound and Vision, the Cultural Heritage Agency, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Archives, together with other partners like for example the knowledge center DEN.

Knowing how much resource to allocate to managing your digital assets is one of the big questions facing digital curation practitioners today.

2015, Vol. 10 No. 1
This paper traces the development of digital and data curation curricula. Due to the brief length of this paper, the focus is on North American initiatives and primarily on continuing education programs. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of professional workshops and the creation of graduate-level courses, certificates, degrees and MOOCs, as well as the role of funding agencies in this process. It concludes with an analysis of what is missing and what is needed to create the workforce required to steward digital assets in the foreseeable future.

2015, Vol. 10, No. 1

Julia Kim, National Digital Stewardship Resident at New York University Libraries, talks about her residency work.
I’m now into the last leg of my nine-month residency, and I’m amazed by what has been accomplished and the major steps still ahead of me. In this post, I’ll give a project update on my primary task: to create, test and implement access-driven workflows of born-digital collections at New York University Libraries.

Julia Kim, National Digital Stewardship Resident at New York University Libraries, talks about her residency work.
I’m now into the last leg of my nine-month residency, and I’m amazed by what has been accomplished and the major steps still ahead of me. In this post, I’ll give a project update on my primary task: to create, test and implement access-driven workflows of born-digital collections at New York University Libraries.

Indiana University announces the release of free, open source media preservation prioritization software created in collaboration with AVPreserve.
MediaSCORE (Media Selection: Condition, Obsolescence, and Risk Evaluation) enables a detailed analysis of degradation and obsolescence risk factors for most analog and physical digital audio and video formats.
MediaRIVERS (Media Research and Instructional Value Evaluation and Ranking System) guides a structured assessment of research and instructional value for media holdings.