Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 17:55:37 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
Digitizing what researchers need
JISC and CURL have released a report, Digitisation in the UK: The Case for
a UK Framework. Excerpt from the executive summary:
In just a handful of years, an enormous amount of richly detailed and
flexible digital material has been amassed in the UK as technology has
expanded to make it possible: a conservative estimate suggests �130
million of public money has been spent on the creation of digital content
since the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, this growth has been as unstructured as
it has been phenomenal, and the material has accumulated in the absence of
a UK framework for digitisation to advise on content, standards and
sustainability, rather than in response to one....Moreover, digital
projects have tended to be driven by supply rather than demand, spurred by
opportunity instead of actual need. A wealth of material in museums,
libraries, archives and journals remains undigitised, despite the pressing
need to sustain the momentum, to continue to create resources of
increasing value and comprehensiveness for the end user. The very
existence of powerful search facilities is changing users' behaviour and
expectations. Future digitisation programmes must respond to this and need
to be more clearly informed by researchers' needs....In 2005, JISC and the
Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL) commissioned
Loughborough University to undertake an in-depth investigation into the
current state of digitisation in the UK, and this document draws on its
findings....Loughborough's research uncovered deep fragmentation in all
components of the digitisation infrastructure: the records of available
material, the provision of e-resources for different disciplines, the
metadata and standards used, the advisory and support services, the
availability of funding, the differing priorities of funders, and variable
hosting, delivery and authentication methods. Yet the very
interconnectedness of the elements of the digitisation process, where each
impacts on the other, makes it both easier and more essential to place
them within a framework which can make formal links that resonate across
all operations. All shortcomings identified in Loughborough's study can
therefore begin to be addressed, from inadequate metadata to lack of
collaboration, by uniting the various sectors through a UK framework for
digitisation. A UKwide strategy would assist in filling gaps in provision,
cut across the efforts of individual funders and digitising organisations,
reduce overlaps between support services and assist in the provision, take
up and use of resources. Fears that any such 'nationalisation' might
stifle local innovation can be allayed by emphasising the flexible nature
of the framework we envisage; one which would issue clear guidelines
rather than prescriptive demands, which would draw up 'gold standards' to
be regularly reviewed. Such a framework, then, should be coordinated and
distributed, rather than centralised, and ensure effective networking of
expertise across different sectors. Also see the JISC press release
(November 24, 2005).
