JDCC09: Robert Miller: A California Digital Library
According to Robert Miller (Director of Books at the Internet Archive), the entire web can be stored in a 4m x 3m x 3m shipping container. Photographic evidence of this phenomenon was just one small part of the wide-ranging and entertaining second plenary session, which looked at what makes a good library, the Internet Archive, and some of its current projects.
Watch the speaker on video.
Read more
JDCC09: Managing content: Value for money
The first talk in the Managing Content strand investigated the real costs of digitisation projects and the hidden costs they often contain, as well as effective ways for publishers and private bodies (generally publishers) to work together to create digital resources. Moderated by Grant Young, a Digitisation and Digital Preservation Specialist at Cambridge University Library, the session included talks by David Tomkins, from the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford; Peter White, from ProQuest; Bill Pidduck, the Chairman ofAdam Matthews Publications; and Simon Tanner from King’s Digital Consultancy Services, King’s College London.
JDCC09: Looking into the future: The impact of user generated content
What is the impact of user generated content on research and scholarship?
All three speakers made it clear that the impact can be massive - but only when the user generated content is sourced and employed intelligently, imaginatively and respectfully.
Key points made in the session:
- ‘Many hands make light work’
- Users are collaborators
- Prepare for your project to evolve away from your control in order to have long-term sustainability
JDCC09: User Engagement: Innovative interfaces
Interactivity was the name of the game in more ways than one in the first User Engagement session. Around 30 people joined Alastair Dunning and Brian Kelly to discuss interfaces to digital content, and how cultural institutions can make use of web 2.0. But it wasn’t all one-way – this interactive session also saw the audience split into groups to look at social networking environments, innovative technologies and embedding usability. Read more
JDCC09: Content in education: Embedding content
It’s not enough to create exciting digital resources, says Kevin Burden, you have to be proactive in engaging the community. That was the starting point for a session which split the audience by suggesting a radical approach to engaging users: it is less important to highlight the content of a resource than how it is going to be used. The content v pedagogical approach took in three key areas:
- identification and selection of content by users
- suitability of resources for learning and teaching
- issues associated with access and licensing
JDCC09: Developing content: Content procurement in an uncertain environment
This session focused on library purchasing during a time of economic recession. The speakers came from various stakeholder backgrounds - librarians, publishers, and users (researchers). Issues raised included how to deal with budget cuts, the rise of e-journals and what is preventing all readers from using them, the relationship between research and production, and the ways in which digitisation has revolutionised book publishing and the way that libraries run.
JDCC09: Catherine Grout: The JISC vision
Catherine’s presentation was designed to outline the JISC vision for a national content collection, reflect on the last ten years of the JISC Content work, talk about the achievements of the JISC mass Digitisation Programmes, and discuss the many challenges ahead.
How to log on at the JISC Digital Content Conference!
Connect to Cotswold Water Park Wifi signal, When the home page loads click on the internet access. This will open the internet page. In the bottom Right hand side corner a log on prompt will appear. Please click on the drop down bar to show Lounge Internet - Password : lounge. This will connect you to the internet— Twitter away.
JISC Digital Content Conference June 30th to July 1st 2009 – Can’t attend but want to follow the event?
The event is full but you can still view and interact with the event. It was always our intention to amplify the event so that as many people could access the event and to a degree interact with the event via twitter and blog posts (tag#jdcc09) . We will be live streaming from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/jdcc09 at 11.30 BST.
Tomorrow marks the opening of the JISC Digital Content Conference, proving hugely popular the event was full within a couple of days of registration opening. The conference aims to discuss and decide the next steps that need to be taken to ensure the sustained integration of digital content into research and education and is one of the most important events of 2009. It will consider the issues facing the UK’s universities as they deal with creating, delivering, sustaining and using a whole range of digital content as well as looking into future opportunities and challenges. The following thematic strands will run throughout the conference: Managing Content; Content Development Strategies; Content In Education; User Engagement; Looking Into The Future. The full programme is available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2009/06/digitalcontent.aspx
There’s no such thing as free (high quality) digital content
At the event “Why pay for content?” organised by the Publishers Association, representatives from the publishing sector, JISC, and academics, put across opposing views on whether we should pay to access content on the internet or it should be freely and openly accessible to everybody. The content in question referred mainly to textbooks and research/reference material for higher education.
However, about 10 minutes into the debate, the opposing speeakers seemed to agree on one fundamental point: the question posed, “Why pay for content?”, was not the right one.
Rather, we should be asking “Who should pay for content?”.
Some key issues from the presentations and debate that emerged were:
• there was general agreement that for the creation and online delivery of high quality, authoritative content, someone has to pay (commercial publishers, government funding, authors, users), somewhere along the food chain
• the view was put forward that the “free at the point of use” model was the preferred one, but still somebody had to pay, at some point
• business models that are being experimented with by open access initiative, have tended to shift the cost of content to the delivery of “added extras” or “value added ” features (eg print on demand, delivery of content in different formats or for different platforms, various degrees of personalisation etc…), while basic content accessible on screen comes for free (see eg Flat World Knowledge )
• if somebody has to pay, then how much should content cost? Commercial publishers agreed that the economics of different sectors would determine this, based on how much value (ie quantified positive outcomes) the purchase of high quality content would bring to one’s business
• why aren’t academics depositing their research outputs into open access repositories even if research into this suggests they are not opposed to it? Views ranged from the need to provide researchers with more stimuli or financial rewards to deposit, to mandating it, to allowing for more experimentation (not clear in what, though…)
• a commercial publisher advanced the notion that there is still not enough evidence that free access will deliver more impact, rather the “brand” has proved to be more effective in delivering impact, so it’s not a matter of business models per se
• the landscape is varied and paid-for content and “free” content coexist and will do so for, at least, the medium term future
The issues are many, and the jury is still out on what delivery and sustainability models will eventually prevail.
But in one thing there seems to be consensus: in the majority of cases there is a cost to the creation of high quality, authoritative and reliable content.