JISC/NEH transatlantic collaboration grants announced
Five digitisation projects are to be awarded funding of around £600,000 ($1,150,000) under a transatlantic collaboration between JISC and the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).A call for proposals issued last November invited scholars in England and the USA to collaborate on digitisation, the aim of the £600,000 ($1,150,000) programme being to unite scholarly collections split between the two countries, explore innovative approaches to digitisation and match expertise in one country with collections to be digitised in the other.
The funded projects are:
- The St Kitts-Nevis Digital Archaeology Initiative (Southampton University / Thomas Jefferson Foundation)
- The World Wide Web of Humanities (Oxford Internet Institute / Internet Archive)
- Shakespeare Quartos Archive (Oxford University / Folger Shakespeare Library)
- PhiloGrid (Imperial College / Tufts University)
- Concordia (King’s College London / New York University)
Read on to find out more about the projects
You can also listen to a podcast from the JISC/NEH launch event at King’s College London about issues in international digitisation, including interviews with key figures in the collaboration.
Usage and impact of digital resources
The JISC invites tenders to conduct a study on the usage and impact of a selection of online digital resources which were produced as part of the JISC Phase One Digitisation Programme, 2003-2007.
The digital collections created as part of the programme are aimed at enhancing the provision of e-content for teaching, learning and research purposes primarily in UK Higher and Further Education Institutions and to respond to the specific needs of users within this sector.
This study intends to investigate the level of impact, usage and take-up that such resources have had on teaching, learning and research within relevant subject areas and the degree to which they respond to users’ needs.
Funding of between £40,000 and £50,000, inclusive of VAT and expenses, is available for this study.
The deadline for proposals is 12 noon on Monday 28 April 2008. The study is expected to begin in June 2008 and be completed by March 2009.
Invitation To Tender document.
Copyright frameworks
Not the most fascinating of the blogs this … but nevertheless of some importance.
The image below shows the framework within which the lead institutions of JISC-funded digitisation projects function. it shows how they relate to other partners, copyright holders and to HEFCE (for whom JISC are operating) Having such a frame work in place ensure that once content is copyright cleared and digitised it can be used and re-used within the educational community
The full framework, with an explanatory key, can be downloaded as a pdf file
Freeing up library space
One of the unexpected benefits of mass digitisation is that it frees up library shelf space; being able to access primary materials and journals online means that librarians no longer need to dedicate precious space to often bulky or fragile objects. Recent JISC-funded digitisation, for example, has allowed many universities around the UK to either put in storage or dispose of some historic newspapers and parliamentary papers.
Some interesting evaluation could be done on the benefits this brings; not only in terms of space saved but in staff time saved in being able to quickly point users towards the networked resource.
For instance at the University of Exeter, librarian Martin Myhill reckons that 280m of shelf space was freed up when the 18th- and 19th- Century Parliamentary Papers went online. Time was also saved by being able to direct users to the website instead of library staff having to take users to the microfilm or print versions,
which were also far more difficult to navigate.
But NB - librarians have to be confident that they will be able to access the replacement digital content in perpetuity! If access to the digital content is likely to be inhibited by rising subscription costs or digital preservation then librarians will wish to keep the original material freely available - another good argument for developing digital content along the open access model.
Podcast: How digitisation can bring a nation’s heritage to the desktops of all
One of the projects in JISC’s digitisation programme, Welsh Journals Online, led by the National Library of Wales, will be adding to a growing body of online materials dedicated to Welsh culture, history and language.
In this podcast, director of the project Arwel Jones talks about how digitisation can promote wider efforts to make a nation’s culture and heritage available to all.
The National Library of Wales is playing a leading role in this process through its “Theatre of memory” strategy, which aims to digitise the whole printed output of the Welsh nation, an ambition that can one day become a reality in the context of a small nation.
Contribute your digital memories of WW1
As part of the JISC funded First World War Poetry Digital Archive project, the University of Oxford has launched a web site to allow members of the public to submit digital photographs or transcripts of items they personally hold which are related to the First World War.
The ‘Great War Archive’ site will run for three months (March-May 2008) and aims to collect together artefacts, letters, diaries, poems, stories that have been passed down from generation to generation reflecting the true experience of the First World War but which are now in danger of being lost.
This resource will subsequently be made available free of charge from Armistice Day (11 November 2008) as part of the First World War Poetry Digital Archive web site, which will feature a multimedia collection of primary material from major British poets of the First World War.
For more information on how to submit your digital items, visit the Great War Archive web site.
The above image is taken from a sketch book belonging to Percy Matthews. Matthews trained at the Ramsgate School of Art and during World War I he served on the Western Front as a Private in the Kentish Buffs, and later in Salonika as a Lieutenant in the Middlesex Regiment. It was in Salonika that he produced his remarkable sketches of scenes and characters from military and civilian life. The image was submitted to the Great War Archive by Elizabeth Masterman on behalf of Peter, his son. This, and other sketches, have now been donated to the Imperial War Museum, where they are currently undergoing conservation.
