Peer Reviews and Digital Resources

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One of the key problems in getting widespread acceptance of digital resources has been the lack of a review process, as would happen to an article or a monograph.

Thus it’s heartening to note the Institute for Historical Research is specifically undertaking more reviews of digital resources on its webpages.

Three of the JISC projects have already been reviewed. The British Library’s 19th-century newspaper site is called “a wonderfully rich resource which has all the benefits of a well-funded, exhaustively researched project.“, the Cartoon Archive represents “an enormous step forward in making accessible a hitherto hidden resource.”

Meanwhile the First World War Poetry Archive is “one of the most comprehensive (if not the most comprehensive) archival sites on the web. It is also one of the best attempts to navigate the museum/archive/website divide that I have seen.” It should be noted the the reviews website also offers creators a chance to respond to their reviewers, as Stuart Lee from the poetry archive has done

A press release (pdf form) on the IHR site details how digital resource creators can get their resource reviewed.

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