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Plenty of Room at the Bottom? Personal Digital Libraries and Collections, my keynote presentation to the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL), 2005, in Vienna Austria available now on Slideshare is the seventh of 12 presentations I’ve selected to mark 20 years in Digital Preservation. The remainder will be published at monthly intervals over 2015.

This presentation represents a thought piece and call to arms to focus more on the collection and preservation of personal digital archives. It was given as a keynote to ECDL but also formed the core of my Banks Lecture at the University of Texas in April 2006 on Preservation and Access for Personal Digital Archives and Literary Papers.

Many of the ideas in the presentation were developed in greater detail in an article in D-Lib June 2005 Plenty of Room at the Bottom? Personal Digital Libraries and Collections, in my contribution to the Memories for Life project (c.2004-2006) and our publication in the Royal Society Interface Journal in June 2006 Memories for Life: a review of the science and technology, and in my initial work as Principal Investigator on the Digital Lives research project involving the British Library and UCL. It is an area of interest I had to leave behind on departing the BL and focussing full-time on consultancy. However it has been great to be editor on behalf of the DPC for the forthcoming Technology Watch Report by Gabriela Redwine on Preserving Personal Digital Archives that should be released later this year on the DPC website.

Over recent years this area has blossomed with an annual conference since 2010 on Personal Digital Archiving and many special collections and research projects developed in libraries. We are beginning to see mass market shared services for lifelogging and personal collection emerging but the key focus of growth currently seems to be on health data. Broader issues though for the public are still surfacing: there has been growing publicity around digital legacy issues for social media and even guidance from the Law Society in the UK on digital legacy and executors. It remains a fascinating area for digital preservation.

eScience and Digital Preservation, presentation to Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) conference November 2004, Rhode Island USA, available now on Slideshare is the sixth of 12 presentations I’ve selected to mark 20 years in Digital Preservation. The remainder will be published at monthly intervals over 2015.

It is closely related to the previous slideshare for May on the Jisc continuing access and digital preservation strategy but focuses just on the science component.

This is one I wasn’t able to present in person but it was kindly delivered by Gail Hodge.

My brief for the presentation was “thoughts or citations you have for the impact of e-science, particularly the GRID, on information management, particularly archiving, preservation and long-term access.”

It is a short presentation of 15 slides covering collection-based science, the Grid, data publishing, and the background and rationale for the Digital Curation Centre (just launched two weeks before in the UK).

It is a snapshot in time and of key issues in 2004 – interesting to contrast with what one would write 10 years on and ponder on progress made.

The JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy 2002-5, presentation to the 2004 JISC-CNI conference, Brighton UK available now on Slideshare is the fifth of 12 presentations I’ve selected to mark 20 years in Digital Preservation. The remainder will be published at monthly intervals over 2015 (however due to sheer volume of work over May this year including the EBI Impact Survey and the 2^nd Handbook sprint, two monthly selections are appearing together this time!).

For those outside the UK, an important context is that Jisc’s role as a national body for digital infrastructure and content on behalf of UK universities and colleges, gave the Strategy considerable influence at the time not just within HE but in other sectors through partnership activities.

This presentation from 2004 is important largely for the legacy of the Strategy that helped establish bodies such as the Digital Preservation Coalition and the Digital Curation Centre, which still have a major influence today.

The presentation sets out the context and rationale for the Strategy including the predicted growth of electronic publications, scientific data, and data curation. The implications of that growth were seen as:

• Core funding for institutions would not grow in line with information growth;
• A need for more automation and tools;
• A need for new shared services and information infrastructure;
• A significant need for R&D and investment to prepare for this.

Therefore  the objectives of Strategy were:

• As an advocacy document to secure additional funding of £6m over 3 years (2002-5) for new programmes in electronic records management and digital preservation;
• Justify the accompanying implementation plan;
• Provide a longer-term framework and rationale for activity extending beyond 2005.

Fortunately activity in these areas did continue beyond 2005 under a series of very able Jisc programme directors and managers.