Curation: the Future of the Past

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Curation the Future of the Past

• Chris Rusbridge
• (with thanks to Peter Burnhill, Philip Lord,
  Alison Macdonald, etc)

Funded by
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Whats the problem?

• Struggle to understand curation against
  preservation

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Whats this?
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More like data
Images from Nigel Hambly, Edinburgh WFAU
one of the coolest and therefore oldest white
dwarfs ever found,,, a member of a hitherto
unobserved and possibly large population of faint
stars
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E-Science example?

• Glass plate originals, being digitised, not born
  digital
• Science from quality of metadata (time, place,
  wavelength) and provenance
• Future examples, eg Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
  VISTA
• Virtual observatories, eg Astrogrid
• Continuity after project end?

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The archive is the sky

AstroGrid project
graphics from US NVO project
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Data Curation Terminology

• management/enhancement over life-cycle of
  scholarly/scientific interest
• Digital Preservation
• Future technological/legal accessibility
  usability
• Data Curation
• Data in use (huge, distributed, for long periods)
• Enhancement (eg annotation)
• Combination and re-combination

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Digital preservation OAIS
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Research/publication process
Lord, Macdonald
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. . . Data archiving
Lord, Macdonald
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. . . curation
Research Process
Web Content
Patent data
Research Process
Secondary (derived) data
Tertiary data for publication
Primary data
Scientist
Metadata
Research based on data
Publication Process
Peer Review
Primary publication
Pre-print
Curation
Data repositories
Curator
Secondary publication
Archived data
Publication Archives
Tertiary Publication
Curation Process
Lord, Macdonald
Library - Peers - Public - Industry
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Provenance

• Digital Preservation
• Archive knows where the data comes from
• Data curation
• Data knows where it comes from
• Changes flow to from derivatives

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Annotation

• Adds huge value
• Poorly implemented

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Lord/Macdonald 1data producers
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Lord/Macdonald 2
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Lord/Macdonald 3data producers re-visited
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Lord/Macdonald 4Librarians
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UK Digital Curation Centre

• Twin drivers
• eScience - data deluge - continuing access
• Digital Preservation
• Jointly funded
• by JISC and the e-Science Core Programme
• Funding of outreach, services development
• Funding of research programme
• Challenge of ensuring fruitful linkage

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DCC Consortium Partners

• Four Consortium partner institutions
• University of Edinburgh (lead, EDINA/NeSC/DCS)
• University of Glasgow (HATII, IS)
• UKOLN, at University of Bath
• CCLRC (Rutherford and Daresbury Laboratories)
• Unifying factor National eScience Centre (NeSC)
• jointly managed by Universities of Edinburgh
  Glasgow
• UKOLN CCLRC have involvement

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Overall Aim

• continuing quality improvement in data curation
  digital preservation
• Main focus
• data as evidential base for scholarly
  conclusions
• role of data curation preservation as keys to
  reproducibility and reuse
• Wider focus
• worlds of eLearning scholarly communication

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Objectives

• Vibrant research programme
• addressing the wider issues of digital curation
• Collaborative Associates Network
• strong links across existing community of
  practice
• engagement with curators (individuals
  organisations)
• Services
• evaluate tools, methods, standards and policies
• a repository of tools and technical information
• provide advice
• Virtuous circle
• expertise, experience requirement feed into the
  DCC research programme back to development
  service

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Setting up the DCC

• Funding from the JISC began on 1 March 2004
• EPSRC Research funding begins on 1 September 2004
• Phase One Set-up
• from now until Launch of Centre in October 2004
• Early deliverables
• Website at www.dcc.ac.uk
• to learn of updates progress
• Helpdesk at digitalcuration_at_dcc.ac.uk
• for queries and offers of collaboration

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Matrix approach
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Some Names Responsibilities

• Peter Burnhill
• Acting Director (Phase One)
• Peter Buneman (Informatics,Edinburgh)
• Research Director PI on EPSRC grant
• Robin Rice
• Phase One Project Co-ordinator
• Liz Lyon (UKOLN, Bath)
• Associate Director (Community Support)
• Seamus Ross (HATII, Glasgow)
• Associate Director (Services)
• David Giaretta (CCLRC)
• Associate Director (Development)

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What does this mean for libraries and archives?