The Impact of Digitizing Special Collections on Teaching and Scholarship
A recent report from OCLC on The Impact of Digitizing Special Collections on Teaching and Scholarship. Reflections on a Symposium about Digitization and Humanities highlights the main recommendations that emerged from the symposium held in June 2008.
The symposium brought together both primary users of (digitised) primary sources as well as “custodians”, such as librarians, archivists, museum professionals and senior managers. Participants discussed, from their own particular view points, strategies to maximise the impact of digitisation of special collections on teaching and research.
The report calls for specific directions for libraries and archives to take in the near future:
- work with faculty to understand current research methods and materials
- go outside the library or archive to build collections and work with faculty
- continue to build digital and material collections for both teaching and research.
Other important issues that emerged were:
- licencing and third-party agreements: the need for common principles in negotiating licensing contracts in order to ultimately guarantee open access to content
- Metrics: the need for more evidence of the impact of digitization and the acknowledgement that quantitative web stats on their own are just not enough.
On this last point: JISC is currently conducting an Impact study of the projects funded under Phase 1 of its Digitisation Programme. The project, carried out by the Oxford Internet Institute, will have as one of its key outcome the production of a Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Resources, which will provide a framework for useful metrics to consider when assessing impact - see blog post on Measuring the impact of digitised resources.
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.
‘Read all about it’
The JISC-funded 19th Century Newspapers digitisation project was highlighted in today’s Guardian as part of a growing number of online newspaper archives which constitute an invaluable resource for historians and researchers.
Stephen Hoare commented:
“The digitisation of the British Library’s 19th-century newspaper collection - the most comprehensive archive ever to go online - was launched in November 2007 after three years of preparation and scanning. The archive covers billions of words and its two million computer-readable pages are a historian’s treasure trove. It represents 48 titles such as the Morning Chronicle, the Graphic, the Examiner and a cluster of Chartist publications.”
Read the full article on The Guardian web site.
New report: an evaluation of the digitisation programme
A new report that evaluates the achievements of the first phase of the JISC digitisation is now available to download from the JISC website. The report, which was led by Evidence Base at the University of Central England in collaboration with Simon Tanner from Kings Digital Consultancy Services at Kings College, illustrates the value of the JISC digitisation programme by placing the work of the programme into a wider international context. It also outlines the key achievements and lessons learned from the first phase of projects.
Read extracts, and download the report in full.
Podcast: Find out more about the 18th century Parliamentary Papers project
Listen to a podcast from the launch event at the House of Commons, in which project director Julian Ball explains more about the project, and Paul Seaward of the Historic Parliament Trust describes how the resource can be used by scholars.
Project launch: 18th century Parliamentary Papers project
A project which has applied 21st century technology to the digitisation of rare and delicate 18th century parliamentary papers was launched on Friday 23 March at an event at the House of Commons.
The 18th century Parliamentary Papers project, funded by JISC and led by the University of Southampton, makes openly available for the first time a complete run of all the parliamentary papers, bills and journals of a momentous century of achievement, upheaval and empire.
The project is the latest stage in the BOPCRIS (British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service) project to digitise British Official Publications over the period 1688-1995.
Project launch: British Library Archival Sound Recordings
Launched today at the British Library, a massive digitisation programme by the British Library and JISC makes 3,900 hours of historic sound recordings available to students, researchers and academics.
A major new online resource, available free to everyone in further and higher education, will provide easy access to thousands of hours of rare and historic sound recordings. Archival Sound Recordings, launched today by JISC and the British Library, will make some 12,000 unique materials from the start of recording history up to the present day available to students, researchers and academics.
