Digital Content – The British Library Vision

TITLE Dr Joanna Newman, Head of Higher Education, The British Library Digital Content – The British Library Vision

1.The British Library Collections and the challenges ahead:
2.What is the British Library’s vision for its content?
3.Being ambitious, strategic and thinking big…
4.Building content through partnerships…
5.Digital Unification…
6.The Digital Library Programme
7.The Vision ahead: a one stop shop for content

1. The British Library Collections and the Challenges ahead…
“ We exist for everyone who wants to do research – for academic, personal or commercial purposes”
Our collections cover all known subject areas ; sciences, technology, medicine, arts & humanities, social sciences…
We have a copy of every item published in the UK
Our collections cover all formats ; sound, images, video, newspapers, maps, manuscripts, databases, books and journals, much more…

Collecting new content: The Web Archive

Collecting new content: http://www.bl.uk/sportandsociety/index.html

Voices of the UK Creating a multi-disciplinary resource

What is the British Library’s Vision for its digital content?

3.Being ambitious, creative and thinking big… The British Library’s collections offer the finest single resource for South Asian studies in the world.
India Office Records — a vast body of material and a rich and unique official record of British involvement with Asia, as well as a very substantial archive of private papers.
Visual materials of internationally significance — art by British artists in India and one of the most extensive collections of early photography.
Exceptional holdings in manuscripts across South Asian languages and scripts.
Unparalleled collections of books, serials and newspapers in a wide range of vernacular languages, as well as books about South Asia in Western languages.

Science and the changing environment in India 1780-1920: a guide to sources in the India Office Records From J McClelland’s report on the Botanic Garden, 1846 Board’s Collections, IOR/F/4/2219 no110061

4.Building content through partnerships… Partnership Projects: EthOS Digi Islam Access to Collections: Archival Sound Recordings British Library Newspapers Online Management & Business Studies Portal Market Research: Google Generation report Researchers of Tomorrow study

http://sounds.bl.uk/

Archival Sound Recordings Preserving global culture Amakondere players: Samuel Kahunde 2008 “ I found the audio fantastic to work with. The realism of it inspired students and encouraged them to source other material beyond Google searches. As a tutor I maybe too often stand there and give my opinion about somebody’s work. Listening to interviews allows students to hear from the photographer themselves what’s behind the images.” Amanda Broadley, Photography Tutor, Joseph Priestley College “ The Wachsmann Uganda Recordings are extremely useful. In Bunyoro kingdom for example, an official recently told me that they had instruments that are not played because nobody knows the skills and their music. I feel that the music can be restored through listening to the digital sounds that are in the British Library archives.” Samuel Kahunde, PhD ethnomusicology student, Sheffield University “ The Oral History of Recorded Sound collection provides valuable interviews with those directly involved in the development of stereo recording technique and commercial decision making. As periods of technical experimentation, the processes are often poorly documented and these first hand accounts provide an invaluable insight into the methods employed,” Ewan Gordon, PhD music technology student, University of York

British Library Newspapers
19 th C digitised Newspapers
Free to HE and FE
50 titles, 10 million articles
Focus on regional
Changing language and context
Just the tip of the iceberg
Manchester Times and Gazette , Sep 12 1835

Digital Unification: Pre-1600 Manuscript Digitization IDP, Mewar Ramayana, Codex Sinaiticus….

Long term digital innovation and storage: the Digital Library Programme
A state of the art digitisation suite
Currently used to digitise theses (350 page A4 books) with pull outs, CDs, variously sized inserts, etc.
Newspapers
Delicate material e.g. Indian office ephemera
Expert staff with many years digitisation experience
Digital Library Programme
Mission: to enable the United Kingdom to preserve and use its digital output forever.
Creating a management system for digital objects that will ingest, store and preserve any type of digital material in perpetuity.
Content includes:Digitised materials donated to the Library under voluntary arrangements;Digitised versions of parts of our own printed collections
Innovative new systems to support storage of material, discovery, digitisation, supply, etc (or any combination)
We want to explore with institutions development of new services for appropriate material types.

The vision ahead: working in partnership to provide access to content and knowledge.
Partnerships with JISC, BBC, SCA way forward for a one stop shop for researchers….
BBC at the BL in January 2011
Growing Knowledge: the evolution of research 12 October 2010 – 16 July 2011
new exhibition of innovative digital tools and technologies
Visit onsite in the British Library or online and tell us what you think
Join one of our evaluation sessions specifically for researchers
www.bl.uk/growingknowledge
#blgk
For evaluation sessions contact - [email_address]

Digital Content – The British Library Vision

by Alastair Dunning

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