Some tips for academic librarians wanting to make sense of AI This the first in a series of posts about Collections as Data, AI, computational approaches to Arts and Humanities, signposting to resources, networks, reports and events How should academic libraries respond to the maturing of Artificial Intelligence? Analysis of recent interviews with five librarians […]
The first podcast in our new mini-series, Is AI for me? Perspectives from the humanities, is out! First episode In The highs and lows of artificial intelligence, Melissa Terras, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh, talks to me about the critical issues around the use of AI in humanities scholarship. Melissa […]
Outcomes of task and finish group investigations into the preparation of datasets for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Recently we established a short-form task and finish group, made up of senior academics and librarians to explore the question: Are universities sufficiently prepared to support the development of datasets and computational methods for data driven research in the […]
The National Archives and Jisc are delighted to welcome the British Library as a new partner in the delivery and organisation of the interdisciplinary Discovering Collections: Discovering Communities (DCDC) conference series. The series is one of the largest cross cultural sector conferences in the UK and sees archivists, librarians, heritage professionals, and academics exploring ways […]
Join us on 19 May to discover how you could advance your research with the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) – Collections on the History of Science (1830s-1970s) digital archive. This innovative resource has been created through a collaboration between Jisc and Wiley, and the contribution of fourteen British universities with their […]
I thought it might be interesting to look at some material for those out exploring during International Women’s Day. I ran some searches on the UK Medical Heritage Library collection on Historical Texts and I found three texts which are interesting for the amateur, but they could start a whole new area of research for the […]
This post, by our colleague Dr. Hannah Woodward-Reed, forms part of a series on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. February 28th marks Rare Disease Day, raising awareness and working towards equity of healthcare and access to diagnosis, healthcare and […]
This is the second of a series of posts on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive by our colleague Dr. Hannah Woodward-Reed. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. Ahead of this year’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we are exploring the archive of […]
This is the first of a series of posts on the Jisc-Wiley history of science digital archive by our colleague Simon Bell of Wiley. It is notable that this resource is free to Jisc members in the UK. Wiley Digital Archives Goes Radioactive As part of the development of the major Jisc-Wiley history of science […]

The group purchasing scheme to date As we launch the 2021/2022 digital archival collections group purchasing scheme, let’s take a moment to reflect on the scheme so far. Over 1/3rd of our higher education members have collectively saved over £0.8 million on the acquisition of products offered through the group purchasing scheme. Additionally, of these, […]
Further to my earlier post about the special Programming Historian series we have developed in partnership with the National Archives, I thought you might be interested in the author briefing event. It will take place on 23 September. Please register via this Eventbrite page. During the call, the Programming Historian team will explore the invitation […]
Researchers often tell us that they have problems when they want to use digital methods to interrogate large archives, special collections, masses of catalogue records or aggregations of metadata. We are therefore pleased to announce a new partnership between Jisc, the Programming Historian and The National Archives (TNA) to publish a series of articles to […]
Jisc would like to invite publishers of digital archives and primary source material to respond to a “Request for Information” for a potential new initiative, the Digital Archival Collections (DAC) publishers’ collaboration programme, through our E-tendering portal. [This initiative is separate from the current Jisc Digital archival collections group purchasing scheme.] This is an information […]
On the same day that Paola Marchionni and I speak at this year’s UKSG conference on the subject of digital archival collections (‘DACs’), we are pleased to make available a new report summarising the series of roundtable talks, described in a previous post on this blog, in which representatives of libraries and publishers came together […]
Across the end of 2020 and early 2021 Jisc organised a series of roundtable conversations between members or our Digital Archival Collections (DAC) Advisory Group and invited representatives of publishers with experience of developing and delivering such collections. These discussions were sparked by ongoing feedback from our members, regarding concerns about DACs, provided to us […]
Today, we are pleased to announce that Jisc is embarking on a project, in partnership with the JSTOR content platform and its parent organisation ITHAKA, to facilitate the hosting and delivery of digitised content from Jisc members, with the goal of extending their reach, impact and reputation. At a time when the necessity of travel […]
Jisc’s Digital Archival Collections (DAC) advisory group met again recently. We discussed some interviews we have undertaken with acquisition librarians. The group thinks that DACs need to be taken as seriously as books and journals in library planning because they are increasingly purchased from budgeted allocations, not from under-spend. Purchasing them, therefore, is dependent on […]
Some members of the HE content team have been discussing issues about the collaborative digitisation of collections. We know, from conversations with our Digital Archival Collections advisory group, that there is a thirst for institutions to work together to make their collections available. We were wondering about the barriers to making this happen. Institutions are […]
At a digital archival collections advisory (DAC) group meeting earlier this month, we discussed the increasing need for higher education libraries to purchase DACs which are more relevant to teaching, especially as most teaching has now moved online. Academics on some arts and humanities courses are increasingly using primary source archives to teach, often with […]
This post is part of an ongoing series about digital archival collections (DACs) and launches our new guide: purchasing digital archives; guidelines for librarians when negotiating with publishers, which provides guidance on the purchasing of these collections for librarians needing to negotiate licences with publishers. Previously our research has shown that these collections provide valuable […]