SCA Scotland Forum 210508 Paul Ell

e-Research Resources for Ireland: Opportunities and Challenges Paul S Ell Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis Queen’s University Belfast p [email_address]

Summary
Introduction
Focus on DLCMI – what, why, how, and then …
Other key strategic datasets developed by CDDA
Challenges from a Northern Ireland perspective
Future developments

CDDA background and objectives
Research unit based at Queen’s University Belfast with 20 staff, bespoke accommodation, and specialised data capture hardware and software
Fully grant-funded with an income of around £7,000,000 over the last 7 years
Aims to develop strategic humanities e-resources
Aims to use these resources in its own research and publish scholarly books and journal articles
Aims to develop methodologies that assist in the management and interrogation of the source materials to produce new perspectives and scholarship

Digital Library of Core Materials on Ireland exemplar
£620,000 grant from JISC to digitise journals, monographs and manuscripts relating to Irish Studies and create the foundations of a digital library resource
Initial archive of around 470,000 pages
100 journals covering 200 year period and about 400,000 pages
2,500 pages of manuscript
205 key monographs
Machine-readable text for all journals and monographs and some manuscripts
Detailed ‘object’ level metadata

Project Partners
Driven by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at Queen’s University Belfast with long track record of key e-resource development
Analogue Content Partners – Queen’s University Library, Linen Hall Library, Robinson Library, journal publishers, Royal Irish Academy
e-Content Partners – AHDS (Centre for e-Research), CDDA, University College Dublin, Digital Humanities Observatory
Dissemination Partners – JSTOR, QUB Library
Preservation Partners – AHDS, JSTOR

Project Imperatives
Access to rare resources without visiting Belfast
Resource discovery – use of less common journals
New, complex searching using detailed metadata and semantic searching
Serendipity
A one stop shop for journals – and more
Enhanced research developing from better access
Insert image

Content Selection
Consultation patterns
Site usage statistics
Academic recommendation
International Advisory Panel
Journals prepared to sign licence (or out of copyright)

Technical challenges
Sheer amount of material to be digitised in two years – Initially set at 470,000 pages to be digitised, now 670,000 (and in fact 830,000 pages of journals now on desirable list)
Very highest image quality required following JSTOR-set standards - post-printing annotations removed, optimal scanner settings required
Use of historical journals which JSTOR has almost no experience with
Very detailed metadata requirements: not just journal level, issue level, but article level including editorials, book reviews, notices and announcements
Reference Linking implemented

Why the DLCMI project works
Diaspora of Irish Studies
Content chosen by academics for academics
Provides basic research materials - humanities scholars not required to change the way they work - a model suggested by the British Academy
Critical mass: Significant body of material which will continue to be augmented – it won’t be a dead archive with new journal issues added, and new journal titles
A fully working technical solution in place with CDDA and JSTOR
Sustainable business model with JSTOR with subscriptions outside Britain and Ireland and free access within

And experience
CDDA people (+20), hardware and software. QUB investment of £300,000 in buildings and equipment outside the project. Capacity built
Outstanding analogue content partners – 600 Irish Studies journal titles held by QUB Library augmented by holdings of other libraries. No better collection anywhere
Robust dissemination partnership completely sustainable building on JSTOR experience and established infrastructure
Use of AHDS archiving experience – now group of Expert centres of which CDDA is a part

Ongoing development
Adding additional materials within the JSTOR collaboration - manuscripts and monographs now, e-publications, datasets, images, video in the future?
Complex searching of the archive - the semantic web. Search by place, person and subject in context with UC Berkeley thanks to an NEH grant
Requirement of funding to demonstrate a step-change in Irish Studies research. As a result QUB will work with leading US institutions including UC Berkeley, IUPUI, Notre Dame, with RIA, and others

Other e-resources we have and have made available
Act of Union Virtual Library: www.actofunion.ie £250,000 from NOF-Digitisation
Historical Hansard: www.stormontpapers.ahds.ac.uk £303,000 from AHRC
GIS e-Science: £20,000, spatial searching
US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): $400,000 with UC Berkeley for context sensitive searching
Database of Irish Historical Statistics: £250,000
British and Irish Historical Census Project: www.histpop.org.uk , £900,000
Parliamentary Papers referring to Ireland with BOPCRIS: www.bopcris.ac.uk £300,000
Hart Diaries Project: £25,000 ongoing
RASCAL, PADDI
Basic Historical Geographical Information System for Ireland thanks to a £130,000 AHRC award in October 2007.

Act of Union Virtual Library
60,000 digital objects 1798 - 1803
Parliamentary Papers
Pamphlets
Newspapers
Manuscripts
In-house solutions to cut costs
www.actofunion.ac.uk

British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland
Led by the University of Southampton
Image scans of key papers linked to the BOPCRIS database
CDDA has digitising 10,000 pages of numeric data
www.bopcris.ac.uk

Stormont debates
£303,330 Arts and Humanities Research Board Resource Enhancement Grant
90,000 pages of ‘Hansard’ from the House of Commons and the Senate from 1921 to 1973
Full text and page image searchable by MP, place, date, subject and free text
Will link to texts of contemporary debate www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie and www.niassemby.gov.uk
Official launch November 2006

The Database of Irish Historical Statistics - Project Aims
To construct a relational database for the period 1821 - 1971
To facilitate regional, national and comparative research on Ireland
To act as an information clearing centre

Historiographical imperatives
Restricted availability of published census returns
Technological advances make possible large scale database projects
Opportunity to further the quantitative study of Irish history

The Database of Irish Historical Statistics
32,934,018 data values from 1821 to 1971, and then linked to contemporary digital sources
Mostly census data but also annual agricultural statistics, civil registration information, crime statistics . . .
Topics include population statistics, crop and stock data, language, literacy, religion, occupations, employment, housing, emigration, industry and industrial structure, trade and commerce, wages, pauperism etc
www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/iredb/dbhme.htm

Challenges for the future
Interlinking QUB e-resources and then using the Data Grid to associate disparate Irish Studies resources - early exemplars ECAI and Vision of Britain
The need to demonstrate advancement of an Irish Studies research agenda
Challenge of managing the ‘data deluge’ and the implications it has for metadata and contextual searching
Sustainability – How do we maintain what we have and build on it

And in a Northern Ireland context
Vagaries of DENI funding within a devolved government: subscription to JISC programmes, viring of budgets
Lack of cohesive data management structure in Northern Ireland. In terms of educational resources work conducted by QUB, NISRA, NMNI, Education and Library Boards, PRONI
Lack of all-Ireland data archive worsened by withdrawal of funding from AHDS and challenged by significant investment in academic e-resources in the Republic
Reinvention and revisiting of basic issues relating to e-resource development

Integrating e-resources by place and chronology: Irish Studies Research Resources: statistics, maps, photographs, text, manuscripts, existing e-resources, websites, museum objects . . .

SCA Scotland Forum 210508 Paul Ell

by michellep on Jun 14, 2008

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