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[This is also going out to DLF-ANNOUNCE, so my apologies if some of you get two copies.] ************************************************** THE JISC DIGITAL CURATION CENTRE Two weeks ago I attended an informational (and packed) "town meeting" on a British proposal to create a Digital Curation Centre there, funded initially for three years by JISC and the UK's e-Science Core Programme. The official presentations and a transcript of the following discussion are now available at the following address, and my thanks to Neil Beagrie for doing this: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/digcentre_townmeeting.html What follows below are my impressions from this meeting, and from various side conversations I had while there, as a supplement to the material on the JISC site. I think there is a good potential for DLF institutions and initiative groups to work in partnership with the Digital Curation Centre. David **************************************** Meeting notes and observations David Seaman The goal of the DCC is to create an internationally-significant research programme into data curation, with initial funding of one million pounds a year for three years, with the expectation of further support. The funding combines support from JISC with support from the e-Science Core Programme (the latter organization now has data curation as one of its six main areas of focus). Both agencies recognize that there has been a much greater investment in data creation than in data curation, and are responding to that imbalance. DCC may take the form of a single centre at a single lead institution, with other partners, or a more evenly distributed virtual centre (I got the impression that the former is more likely), and the nature of the government funding allows involvement of the private sector but is not predicated on it. DCC builds on work done in previous UK initiatives, such as CEDARS (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/), CAMILEON (http://129.11.152.25/CAMiLEON/dh/ep5.html), and PRONOM (http://www.pro.gov.uk/about/preservation/digital/pronom/default.htm). DCC will be expected to cover: 1) new research in digital curation (about a third of the effort) 2) file format information 3) tools, testbeds and certification 4) advisory and outreach services -- a clearinghouse function; an awareness-raising function; and promotion of good practices. There is an expectation that OAIS minimum criteria will be underlying its recommendations, and they expect strong links with other relevant initiatives and organizations (including the DLF). DCC will engage with both "born digital" and "born-again digital" material but it is not itself creating data -- it is a research and development center; DCC is not itself saving data in a data store, nor building a national preservation infrastructure; instead, it is informing these endeavors, which take place elsewhere. Finally, much was said about the deliberate choice to aim this at the curation of resources, which includes preservation but is not limited to it; DCC is expected to concentrate on a range of stewardship and data lifecycle management needs from creation to preservation (how do you build "preservation-friendly" data in the first place, for example), with data re-use and continuous access as crucial concepts. David Seaman Executive Director, Digital Library Federation 1755 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 tel: 202-939-4762 fax: 202-939-4765 e-mail: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.diglib.org/ David Seaman Executive Director, Digital Library Federation 1755 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 tel: 202-939-4762 fax: 202-939-4765 e-mail: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.diglib.org/