Because good research needs good data

'What's New' Issue 47: July 2012

Magdalena Getler | 16 July 2012

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and Digital Curation Centre (DCC) are delighted to announce a new issue of our joint newsletter ‘What’s New’.

In the July issue:

WHAT'S ON: Forthcoming events from July 2012 onwards

WHAT'S NEW: New reports and initiatives since the last issue

WHAT'S WHAT: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Research Data, William Kilbride, DPC

I'll cheerfully admit that my first meaningful exposure to academic research was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So the reality of modern archaeological research is a little disappointing. For the record I've not yet had to climb a crcodile-infested canyon, fight Nazis, free child slaves, jump from a plane in a liferaft, or dodge poison darts in some centuries-old death trap (except in the metaphorical sense). Fieldwork in Scotland is just not like that.

But the series has a few well observed subtleties which you could be forgiven for missing. There's the vast, orderly and anonymous warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant ends up: I'm pretty sure that you could recreate a scene like that in the Glasgow Museum Resource Centre. There's the hugely learned and charming Marcus Broadie figure - a hopeless fish-out-of-water when it comes to fieldwork. There's the local fixer who really runs the dig, and there's the absolute dependence on poorly provisioned shovel-bums who are quickly shooed in the unlikely event that something interesting turns up. When Salah says, 'They've shanghaied every digger in Cairo', you should perhaps understand 'they've made three months unpaid fieldwork compulsory for progression into fourth year'.... Read more

WHO'S WHO: Sixty second interview with Patrick McCann, Digital Curation Centre

Where do you work and what's your job title?

I’m an Institutional Support Office for the Digital Curation Centre and I’m based at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute at the University of Glasgow.

Tell us a bit about your organisation

The DCC is a world-leading centre of expertise in digital information curation with a focus on building capacity, capability and skills for research data management across the UK's higher education research community. We provide expert advice and practical help to anyone in UK higher education and research wanting to store, manage, protect and share digital research data.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m currently working on improving the CARDIO tool (http://cardio.dcc.ac.uk) and I am involved with the DCC’s programme of engagements with higher education institutions. These allow us to provide intensive, tailored support to increase data management capability.... Read more

ONE WORLD: nestor - The German Network of Expertise for Digital Preservation, Sabine Schrimpf, German National Library

Three years after its transformation from project phase to a sustainable partner consortium, nestor has delivered the third of its annual nestor Practitioners’ Days in June 2012.

The Practitioners’ Day exemplifies the mission of nestor: to bring together experts from different communities to discuss and find out about new developments and practical approaches to digital preservation. The event provides a forum for exchange of experience and is intended for all who deal with the practical and concrete issues of digital long-term preservation. Following two more general and comprehensive events in 2010 and 2011, the nestor Practitioners’ Day 2012 set two specific focal points, one on cost and business models and another on the specific issues of preserving audiovisual media.

Altogether, however, the activities of nestor have broadened and diversified during the last couple of years. The nestor partners now host nine working groups, which are open to non-nestor members as well... Read more

YOUR VIEW?: Comments and views from readers