Tuesday, September 21, 2004

The Digital Curation Centre

Long term preservation of digital information is a complicated subject. Several institutions are studying this topic including The Digital Curation Centre. The Centre using the term "digital curation" to mean:
... the actions needed to maintain digital research data and other digital
materials over their entire life-cycle and over time for current and future
generations of users. Implicit in this definition are the processes of digital
archiving and preservation but it also includes all the processes needed for
good data creation and management, and the capacity to add value to data to
generate new sources of information and knowledge.

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is just getting off the ground. It was begun on March 1, 2004 and will formally launch during the fourth quarter of this year. The Centre has research priorities and a network of associates. Located in Edinburgh (UK), it is being funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) . A timeline is not given for their research agenda, but it will undoubtedly take time. We can hope that the DCC will publish results and papers along the way, sharing what it learns with the rest of the world. Given its focus, it is definitely an organization that is worth watching.

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