Because good research needs good data

Digital Curation Google Group

Chris Rusbridge | 08 January 2009

Interesting Google Group on Digital Curation set up a month or so ago, 25 November 2008 to be exact. Brief is:

"Intended to be a collaborative space for people involved in the work of digital curation and repository development to share ideas, practices, technology, software, standards, jokes, etc."

There's been mostly techie-level discussion on various topics, including the bagit data packaging spec, whether it should include forward error correction (to cope with very long transit time, FedEx style transfers, I think), and (on a quite different level) the concept of "movage", reported by Ed Summers based on conversations at a LoC barcamp with Ryan McKinley, whoever he is, and others. The essence is:

"The only way to archive digital information is to keep it moving."

Which ties in with some thoughts of mine: the best way to preserve information is to keep using it. I don't know how to link to individual posts, but if you go look you'll find it easily enough.One worth watching!