Digitised Content: What universities can learn from publishers and what publishers can learn from universities

Digitised Content: universities, publishers, sharing, openness Alastair Dunning JISC Digitisation Programme Manager 11 th Fiesole Collection Retreat 23 rd July 2009 http://www.slideshare.net/xcia0069

overview

Overview

Issues on the digitisation of cultural and educational content, largely focusing on UK

What publishers are good at

What universities are good at

Where we need to go next

Focus is from a public sector body that funds creation of digital content

What JISC does in general

Provides rapid email and Internet access

Gives answers to ICT questions and needs either via computers or humans

Allows you to explore new ideas

Provides Technical Infrastructure

Runs services providing data, offering advice

Funds innovative projects

Supported via Higher Education funding councils with top-sliced funding.

jisc supports ICT in UK Higher and Further Education

JISC Digitisation Programme

JISC Digitisation programme

22 projects – c.£22m of funding

Phase 1 – 2004 – 07

Phase 2 - 2007 - 09

Some notable successes – British Library Newspapers, Freeze Frame, First World War Poetry Archive, Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets

the jisc digitisation programme has funded over 50 projects since 2004, at c. £24m

Digitisation Problems

Public sector funding – c. £160m

Despite some sparkling successes, e.g Darwin Online or Old Bailey Online

Many sites without users

Many sites not sustained

Value for money for public-sector purse

Digitisation falling off radar off some funding bodies

http://web.me.com/xcia0069/uk-digitisation.html

in the uk numerous funders have created too many digital resources, but not got enough users

sustaining digital resources is a problem

JISC Digitisation Programme

Particular strategic elements put in place to respond to these issues

Sustainability – five years at least

Different business models to support this

Marketing and Comms Plans – from project proposal to after project launch

Building community of expertise – sharing of best practice, tools, documentation, mutual reinforcement.

jisc tries to inject a sense of community in its projects

Publishers Skills

Do publishers worry about these things? Natural part and parcel of commercial publishing – who would publish without users and a long-term plan

E.g. State Papers Online 1509-1714

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Can university libraries learn from this?

publishers are less surprised by problems with sustainability and usage numbers

publishers are better at focussing on publication than universities

Sharing the Skills

JISC asked projects to look at harnessing commerical skills

4 examples of digi projects engaging with publishers, e.g JSTOR British Pamphlets

Testing different models for sustainability

Gives a test bed for further work in the future

Case studies by Ithaka also part of this work

sharing is good

Next steps for digitisation

But there are still problems

Under-use

Digital Library infrastructure

Archipelago of content

Creating critical mass

Openness of data

there is still the issue of digital resources being underused

the archipelago of digital content

The Murder of Jean Alexander News sheet, from Edinburgh Nov 14, 1807 – from John Johnson Ephemera Collection Morning Chronicle, London, 19 Nov 1807 – from BL Newspapers

there are countless resources on, for example, 19 th - century Britain

Study of 19 th -Century Britain

British Library Newspapers

Research Libraries UK project – 1m pamphlets

Electoral Data in Vision of Britain

John Johnson Collection of Ephemera

Old Bailey Proceedings

19 th- Century Serial Editions

Nineteenth-Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Nineteenth-Century UK Periodicals Online

Microsoft Digitisation

Google Books!

How can bring this content together?

Plenty of portals have already tried this with only partial success

We need to open up content to multiple standards for humans and machines

‘ You might not have the best idea for your data’

Using RSS, JSON, RDF

APIs – Flickr, Brooklyn Museum

New users

Great War Archive part of First World War Poetry Archive

Encouraged general public to digitise their own collections

Built up a Flickr group, and a community of interest

Project hosts at Oxford University reached out to a whole new set of users

the great war archive brought the university of oxford in contact with a whole new set of users

Some URLs

Ongoing registry of UK public sector digitisation projects - http://web.me.com/xcia0069/uk-digitisation.html

JISC Digitisation Programme - http:// www.jisc.ac.uk /digitisation

British Library Newspapers - http:// newspapers.bl.uk / (version for general public)

Freeze Frame – http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk

Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets - http:// www.britishpamphlets.org.uk /

First World War Poetry Archive - http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/

Mike Ellis presentation on opening up data - http:// www.slideshare.net/dmje/dont-think-websites-think-data

Sustainibility Case Studies - http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/strategy/ithaka-case-studies-in-sustainability

Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources - http:// microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr /

DISCMap survey of priorities for digitisation - http:// discmap.cdlr.strath.ac.uk /

Flickr services - http://www.flickr.com/do/more/

Brooklyn Museum API - http:// www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/api /

BBC Backstage - http:// backstage.bbc.co.uk /

Thanks!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/funksoup/403990660/

http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk/collection/british-graham-land-expedition-collection/p51-8-b114?gallery=ice

http://visionofbritain.org.uk/iipmooviewer/iipmooviewer.html?fileName =smith_1806/smith4_1806%3DThe+British+Library&x=37&y=34

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/document/8756/2528#doc-desc

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/3589789158/sizes/l/

http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/search/displayItemImage.do?FormatType = fulltextimgsrc&PageNumber =1&ItemNumber=3&ItemID=& shelfNumber =1&ResultsID=1220822AAD9A453F1