Collection Description

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Collection Description considerations in the
nof-digitise programme Sarah Mitchell Programme
Manager New Opportunities Fund
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Overview of nof-digi Programme

• The objectives
• The timescale
• The content and criteria
• The delivery mechanism
• The outcomes
• The CD challenge ..Susi Woodhouse
• Nof-digi in context .David Dawson

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The Objectives

• 50m fund for publication of on-line material to
  support and encourage lifelong learning for all
• increase access to resources of museums,
  charities, libraries, community groups,
  galleries, archives, centres of education and
  learning
• support government strategy for social inclusion
  and help those not part of formal education
  benefit from information age
• build cross-sector partnerships
• complement Funds other ICT initiatives

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The Timetable

• all awards approved end June
• 154 projects throughout the UK representing
  wide range of expertise and participation from
  voluntary, public and private sectors
• all sites must open to public by end Dec 02
• public launch early 2003
• Final completion by Oct 04
• over 1m images/sound video clips/text
  pages/400 learning packages

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The content and criteria

• Three main theme strands
• - cultural enrichment
• - citizenship for all
• - re-skilling the nation
• access via community languages
• finding tools
• meeting technical standards
• proven user need / links to related material
• subject and regional partnerships
• user evaluation and response capability
• sustainability - 3 year monitoring period

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The Delivery Mechanism

• 154 project websites - linked to 500 contributing
  organisations plus..
• 29 consortia gateways
• UK Online learning centres
• Peoples network in public libraries
• National Grid for Learning - NGfL
• nof-digitise portal

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The Outcomes

• Body of material to support learning in its
  broadest sense
• Body of expertise to continue development
• New models of service delivery across
  traditional boundaries
• Good practice in digital content creation
• Repository for future exploration
• New communities of interest

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The CD challenge for NOF

• How to ensure optimum access to project
  resources through the nof-digitise portal by
  December 2002
• over to Susi...

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Context of the CD challenge

• A unique experiment of unprecedented scale and
  scope.
• Brings together many sectors
• cultural voluntary community public
  information health education government...
• 154 projects with many unexpected
  inter-relationships of topic, of place, of
  format, of target audience
• Need to be able to exploit these

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Driving factors

• Users expect to find stuff across all media
  irrespective of source. Aim to
• provide collection-level resource discovery
  mechanism for the programme of relevance
• across digi consortia and projects
• across digi projects and other bodies of digital
  materials (e.g. DNER, COL, Canadian DCCI)
• across digi projects and collection descriptions
  of physical items (e.g. A2A, Cecilia)
• Technical standards framework

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Questions for the challenge!

• How best to deliver a sustainable, interoperable
  end product?
• What is NOFs definition of collection?
• How will CLDs be created and managed?
• What schema? What terminology?
• How will Digi CLDs be made available through the
  portal and other points of interest?
• No answers yet.

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Next Steps

• Consultation and intelligence gathering with key
  players
• Identify options and make decisions on
  implementation strategy
• Share thinking at an early stage
• Inform and be informed by wider context
• over to David...

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NOF-digitise in context

• Domain-specific
• physical collections
• museums
• libraries
• archives
• historic environment
• natural sciences
• voluntary sector
• which context????

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ARCHON

• Archives
• HMC
• http//www.hmc.gov.uk/archon/archon.htm

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Cornucopia

• Pilot
• 2 regions
• SW
• WM
• http//www.cornucopia.org.uk

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Simple for our users?

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Simple for collections holders?

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Wider picture

• e-Europe
• Co-ordination of National Digitisation Policies
• Inventory of policies, programmes and projects
  across Europe
• virtual collections description
• international agreement on standards
• metadata harvesting ???
• http//www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/forum/index.html

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Collection Description considerations in the
nof-digitise programme New Opportunities Fund