Today Jisc and Ithaka S+R are launching “Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content”, a new report aimed at helping digital projects to thrive.
This report, which provides a close look at three institutions (UCL, Imperial War Museums and the National Library of Wales) in the United Kingdom confirms:
• How fragmented the digital landscape is at universities and within other organizations
• How there are examples of good practice within and outside higher education that all can learn from but that greater co-ordination is required to deliver this at a UK level
• How little the topic of post-build sustainability comes up at the higher levels of administration
• How risk is present within the current system, concerning the sustainability of digital content.
“It’s a wakeup call for us all,” said Andrew Green, chief executive and librarian at the National Library of Wales. “It’s essential reading for anyone in the business of access to digital content.”
The report, complete with effective recommendations includes a Sustainability Health Check Tool for Digital Content Projects, which helps people to ascertain what tools or resources projects could use to be even more successful.
With funding from the Jisc-led Strategic Content Alliance (SCA) in the United Kingdom, the Canadian Heritage Information Network, and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States, Ithaka S+R is conducting a multi-year research program to shed light on common challenges associated with sustaining digital projects beyond implementation and provide guidance and tools to help administrators, project leaders, librarians, and funders ensure that projects continue to grow. This report is the first in the series.
For more on sustainability and related issues, go to the SCA blog.