LOCKSS, Ongoing from 1999

Project website: http://www.lockss.org/

Partners: British Library; Cambridge University Library; Imperial College; University of Leeds; University of Edinburgh; University of Glasgow

LOCKSS ("Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe") is open source software that provides librarians with an easy and inexpensive way to collect, store, preserve, and provide access to their own, local copy of authorized content they purchase. Currently, more than 80 libraries and 50 publishers from around the world are using the software. In addition, the Stanford LOCKSS team is collaborating with institutions through the LOCKSS Alliance to further collection, technical, and community development.

E-Journal Archiving Study, Completed October 2003

Full report: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ejournalsfinal.pdf [PDF, 342Kb]

Partners: JISC

Archiving E-Journals Consultancy - Final Report, October 2003, by Maggie Jones. The consultancy explored issues associated with implementing the archiving clauses of the JISC/NESLI Model Licence Report Commissioned by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Full report available via the JISC website.

Feasibility Study on E-Prints, Completed October 2003

Full report: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/e-prints_report_final.pdf [PDF, 1,018Kb]

Partners: Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS); Estonian Business Archives; SHERPA; University of Nottingham

Feasibility and Requirements Study on Preservation of E-Prints. Report Commissioned by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), AHDS as lead partner. Report published October 29, 2003, by Hamish James, Arts and Humanities Data Service, Raivo Ruusalepp, Estonian Business Archives, Sheila Anderson, Arts and Humanities Data Service, Stephen Pinfield, SHERPA.

Oxford Digital Library, Ongoing from July 2001

Website: http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/

Partners: Oxford University Library Service (OULS); Mellon Foundation

The Oxford Digital Library (ODL) is a digitisation project which aims to develop an overarching infrastructure with planned content creation, management, and delivery. It has developed standards for ensuring long-term access to the digital content created through its programmes. Operational from July 2001, the project is undergoing continuous development and has been funded from within Oxford University and from the Mellon Foundation.

The National Archives (UK) Digital Archive, Ongoing from 2001

Further information: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/preservation/digitalarchive/

Partners: The National Archives (UK)

The Digital Archive at the National Archives offers secure storage for selected electronic government records and provides access to them via linked PCs in the Public Reading Rooms at the Kew site.

PRONOM, Ongoing from 2001

Project website: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/

Partners: The National Archives (UK)

PRONOM was developed by the National Archives for managing information about the file formats used to store electronic records, and the software applications needed to render these formats. It is intended for free use by anyone needing to preserve electronic records over the long term and is under continuous development. PRONOM release 3 is publicly available on the Internet and the database contains over 250 software products, 550 file formats and 100 manufacturers (as of 2003) and is growing.

DAAT: Digital Asset Assessment Tool, October 2004 - June 2006

Further Information: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_daat

Partners: ULCC; AHDS; National Preservation Office; The National Archives (UK); The British
Library; Kings College London; School of Advanced Study of the University of London; Digital Preservation
Coalition

This project will develop a digital preservation assessment tool for use within the UK HE/FE and research, learning and teaching communities.  The proposal will provide those responsible for managing digital resources in a variety of institutional settings, including libraries, archives, data centres, computer services and research teams, with a valuable tool for identifying the preservation needs of their digital holdings.  This project was funded under the JISC Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions (4/04) programme.

MoPark Metadata Options Appraisal, 14th June 2004 - 30th September 2006

Project website: http://www.mopark.net/

Funder: Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park
The CDLR is carrying out a metadata options appraisal for a project called MoPark. MoPark aims to encourage green tourism within the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park through the creation and population of a digital multimedia repository and management system.

CMS Metadata Interoperability Project: Ensuring Metadata Interoperability Across Scottish Content Management Systems and Digital Repositories, 1st June 2005 - 30th April 2006

Project website: http://cms.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/

Partners: Scottish Museums Council; National Library of Scotland

A SLIC funded project aiming to establish, document, and disseminate guidelines for best practice in the choice and use of CMS metadata for the management of simple and complex digital objects in an interoperable Scottish Common Information Environment.

STARGATE, 28th October 2005 - 28th May 2006

Project website: http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/stargate/; http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue47/robertson/

Partners: Heriot Watt, University Journal of Digital Information; Professor Tom Wilson (Information Research: an international electronic journal); Library and Information Research Group (Library and Information Research); CILIPS/SLIC (Information Scotland)

The STARGATE project will explore the use of static repositories as a means of exposing publisher metadata to OAI-based disclosure, discovery and alerting services within the JISC IE and beyond.

Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media (paradigm), October 2004 – October 2006

Project website: http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/
Featured DPC Members' Project No. 5: University of Oxford; University of Manchester

The Universities of Oxford and Manchester have established collecting profiles in modern political papers. The papers of contemporary politicians - that will become the research materials of tomorrow - are being comprehensively created in electronic form. The exemplar strategies that this project will develop with political papers will be of use for any institution which collects, preserves, and maintains access to private papers. This project has been funded under the http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_404">JISC Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions (4/04) programme.

PRESERV (PREServation Eprint SERVices), October 2004 – September 2006

Further information: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_preserv
Featured DPC Members' Project No. 4: University of Southampton; The National Archives (UK);
The British Library; University of Oxford

PRESERV aims to implement an ingest service based on the OAIS reference model for institutional archives built using Eprints software. Working with the National Archives, the project will link Eprints through a Web service to PRONOM software for identification and verification of file formats. The project will emphasise automation, will provide modular tools for capturing metadata and will enable the identification and verification of file formats. The project will scope a technology watch service to populate and update PRONOM where full automation is not feasible for file format recognition. This project has been funded under the http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_404">JISC Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions (4/04) programme.

SHERPA DP, October 2004 – October 2006

Project website: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=project_sherpa2

Featured DPC Members' Project No. 1: Arts and Humanities Data Service; Consortium of
Research Libraries in the British Isles (CURL); University of Nottingham

The SHERPA Digital Preservation (DP) project aims to create a collaborative, shared preservation environment for the SHERPA institutional repositories project framed around the Open Archiving Information Systems (OAIS) Reference Model. The project will bring together the SHERPA institutional repository systems with the preservation repository established by the Arts and Humanities Data Service to create an environment that fully addresses all the requirements of the different phases within the life cycle of digital information. This project has been funded under the JISC Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions (4/04) programme.

Digital Curation Centre: 3-year project funding initially, from 2004

Partners: JISC; eSCP; DCC             

The initial three-year project to develop a national Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is a key aim of the JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy 2002-05.  The DCC will focus on research in data curation, file format information, tools, testbeds and certification and advisory services.  Funded jointly by JISC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's (EPSRC) e-Science Core Programme, to focus on the needs of UK FE and HE, but with the possibility of extending to and developing additional funding from, other sectors.

Dorothy Dunnett Disks Project: Ongoing from 2004

Contact: Robin Smith

Partners: National Library of Scotland

To use electronic files in Dorothy Dunnett archive as a pilot project to develop accessioning, appraisal, migration and descriptive processes for manuscript material in electronic format

E-Science Data Curation Audit: Completed February 2004

Partners: JISC

This consultancy aimed to establish the provision and future requirements for curation of primary research data being generated within e-science in the UK.  The audit included the e-science core programme but extended beyond this to other e-science research and primary research data.

Data Curation for e-science in the UK

Scottish Party Political Press Releases Preservation and Access pilot: Ongoing from 2004

Contact: Paul Cunnea

Partners: National Library of Scotland

Pilot to investigate long-term preservation and access options for e-mail publications, using Scottish PPRs as case study.

E-Learning Project: Completed January 2004

Long-Term Retention and Reuse of E-Learning Objects and Materials

Partners: JISC; AHDS

A feasibility study to assess long-term retention and re-use of e-learning objects and materials, part of the JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy 2002-5. Undertaken by the Institute for Computer Based Learning (ICBL) at Heriot-Watt, with support from AHDS.

ICA work-book on ERM: Completed 2004

Partners: ULCC

International Council on Archives (ICA) workbook on electronic records management (ERM) is a practical handbook aimed at archivists, primarily in government, and also for IT staff. The handbook has been created via ICA funding together with volunteer effort from members: Electronic Records: A Workbook for Archivists (ICA Study 16)

Representation and Rendering Project (file formats): Completed February 2004

Partners: JISC, University of Leeds

File Format Representation and Rendering Project, which aimed to develop tried and tested technologies, conceived by the Cedars and CAMiLEON projects. Survey and assessment of sources of information on file formats and software documentation, Final report produced by the Representation and Rendering Project, University of Leeds, (undated)

Survey and assessment of sources of information on file formats and software documentation

British Library Archival Sound Recordings Project, Sound Archive acetate disks: Completed 2000

Partners: British Library (BL)

The transfer of ca 20,000 "acetate" direct cut audio discs to an off-line digital platform (CD-R) during the period 1995-2000.  This was an internally funded BL project using external contract labour for the transfers.

PRESTO: Completed 2002

Partners: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA) (France); Radiotelevisione Italiana Spa (RAI) (Italy)

A 5th framework EU project headed by the BBC, to develop a cost-effective approach to the preservation of broadcast archives, audio and video, through developing workflow efficiency and automation tools to achieve cost reductions in the region of 30% while maintaining quality.  Starting with survey, scoping and definition of the issue, moving to developing new technology, integrating and testing and demonstrating that it works.  The work of the PRESTO project is currently continuing under PrestoSpace.

PrestoSpace

Persistent Identifiers, 2004 - end of 2005

Contact: Lee Hibberd     

Partners: National Library of Scotland

To develop a system and policy for improving the permanence of object identifiers.  Initial work will ensure that persistent ids exist for all digital images.  Results will be applied to other digital objects.

Risk analysis of corporate-wide file types, Completed July 2005

Contact: Lee Hibberd

Partners: National Library of Scotland

To prioritise the efforts of the library's digital preservation activities on the groups of digital/electronic information that is most at risk of loss. This will involve an assessment of formats, carrier media, reader devices, complexity and other issues that affect all types of files across the library including CAD drawings, library records, corporate information, digitised assets and web pages.

D Space@ Cambridge, Due to complete December 2005

Project website: https://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/

Partners: Cambridge University Library (CUL), MIT Library

The DSpace@Cambridge project is a 3-year collaboration between CUL and MIT Libraries, funded by the DTI-sourced Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), to establish a digital institutional repository for Cambridge University. Expected deliverables include the development of improved digital preservation functionality in the DSpace software platform. 
CMI is funding a complementary CUL-MIT Libraries project, LEADIRS (www.lib.cam.ac.uk/UKseminars/), to promote digital institutional repository strategies in UK HE/FE. This will include coverage of preservation issues.

DARP Project, January 2007

The sixth interview was carried out in January 2007 between Najla Semple and Hilary Beedham of the UK Data Archive. Hilary is also a member of the project team of the East of England Digital Preservation Regional Pilot Project [DARP] which was published as a report, available at: www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/publications/darp2006.pdf

IRI Scotland Project, 1st September 2005 - 31st August 2007

IRI Scotland is seeking to develop an internationally interoperable framework for a distributed institutional repository infrastructure for Scottish research. This will entail experimenting with a collective hosting repository and a cross-repository search facility capable of accommodating a wide range of research and research-related digital objects. IRI Scotland will also investigate strategies designed to facilitate the cultural and organisational changes needed to underpin institutional repositories.

IRI Scotland (http://www.iriscotland.lib.ed.ac.uk/) a SCURL project (http://scurl.ac.uk/)