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Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition are pleased to announce the public release of Preservation, Trust and Continuing Access for e-Journals, the latest in the Digital Preservation Coalition’s (DPC) series of Technology Watch Reports. Written by Neil Beagrie, and published in association with Charles Beagrie Ltd., this report and associated press release were published yesterday at the DPC’s much anticipated ‘e-Journals Summit’ at the RIBA headquarters at 66 Portland Place, London.

Endorsed by LIBER (The Association for European Research Libraries), the report discusses the critical issues of preservation, trust and continuing access for e-journals, particularly in light of the dynamic and interdependent resources they have become, as well as the ever-growing trend towards open-access.

With extensive experience in this field and a particular reputation for his policy advice on e-journals and the cost/benefits of digital preservation for Jisc and others, Neil tells us that these “issues have become increasingly important for research libraries as published journals and articles have shifted from print to electronic formats; and as traditional publishing business models and relationships have undergone major transformations as a result of that shift.”

With these issues in mind, the report provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in e-journal preservation, outlining key considerations and an application of best practice standards. The report introduces a range of service providers that now support continuing access and/or preservation of e-journals and how research libraries have increasingly come to trust them.

Neil explains that “for trust to be established between libraries and digital preservation services there needs to be clear agreements for long-term archiving, and clear procedures and mechanisms for those agreements to be implemented and validated when necessary across all elements of the supply chain.”

Matthew Herring from the University of York is sure that the report provides answers to these requirements, calling it “a clear, comprehensive and informative introduction to the area… if I was trying to grapple for the first time with long-term e-journal access, I would find this a very helpful guide.”

Oya Y. Rieger, Associate University Librarian for Digital Scholarship and Preservation Services at Cornell University Library agrees, adding that “due to inherent risks associated with digital media, the initial focus of earlier preservation studies was much more on technology issues. Neil’s comprehensive analysis illuminates the complex and integrated nature of technical, policy, business, and trust issues underlying e-journal preservation.”

While ‘Preservation, Trust and Continuing Access for e-Journals’ predominantly addresses issues felt most keenly by libraries, scholars and publishers, the report also includes generic lessons on outsourcing and trust learnt in this field of interest to the wider digital preservation community. It is not solely focussed on technology, and covers relevant legal, economic and service issues.

You can download a PDF copy and read the report at ‘Preservation, Trust and Continuing Access for e-Journals’ .

Jisc in partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) have commissioned work by Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd and Professor John Houghton of Victoria University to examine the value and impact of the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC).  We are pleased to announce publication today of the study report.

The key findings

The study shows the benefits of integrating qualitative approaches exploring user perceptions and non-economic dimensions of value with quantitative economic approaches to measuring the value and impacts of research data services.

The measurable economic benefits of BADC substantially exceed its operational costs. A very significant increase in research efficiency was reported by users as a result of their using BADC data and services, estimated to be worth at least £10 million per annum.

The value of the increase in return on investment in data  resulting from the additional use facilitated by the BADC was estimated to be between £11 million and £34 million over thirty years (net present value) from one-year’s investment – effectively, a 4-fold to 12-fold return on investment in the BADC service.

The qualitative analysis also shows strong support for the BADC, with many users and depositors aware of the value of the services for them personally and for the wider user community.

For example, the user survey showed that 81% of the academic users who responded reported that BADC was very or extremely important for their academic research, and 53% of respondents reported that it would have a major or severe impact on their work if they could not access BADC data and services.

Surveyed depositors cited having the data preserved for the long-term and its dissemination being targeted to the academic community, as the most beneficial aspects of depositing data with the BADC, both rated as a high or very high benefit by around 76% of respondents.

The study report

The study report is available for download as a PDF file at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/di_directions/strategicdirections/badc.aspx

The British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC)
The BADC, based at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, is the Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) Designated Data Centre for the Atmospheric Sciences. Its role is to assist UK atmospheric researchers to locate, access, and interpret atmospheric data and to ensure the long-term integrity of atmospheric data produced by NERC projects. There is also considerable interest from the international research community in BADC data holdings.

Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) are delighted to announce the public release of the latest study in the series of topical Technology Watch Reports. The second edition of ‘Preservation Metadata,’ written by Brian Lavoie and Richard Gartner, focuses on new developments in preservation metadata, since the first edition of the report (published Sept 2005), made possible by the emergence of PREMIS as a de facto international standard.

Specialists in the field of electronic information provision for digital preservation at OCLC Research and the Centre for e-Research at Kings College London, Brian and Richard pick up from the first edition of the report, reminding us ‘it is no exaggeration to assert that preservation metadata, and the PREMIS Data Dictionary in particular, have become part of best practice underpinning responsible long-term stewardship of digital materials.’

The report goes on to outline key implementation topics that have emerged since the publication of the PREMIS Data Dictionary, including community outreach, packaging, tools, PREMIS implementations in digital preservation systems and implementation resources.

Neil Beagrie, Director of Charles Beagrie Ltd and Managing Editor of the DPC Technology Watch Reports praises the new edition, noting that it “is a deservedly popular report first published in 2005 …extensively updated to reflect developments over the past eight years in preservation metadata practice.”

Adrian Brown, Director of the Parliamentary Archives concurs, calling it ‘an excellent report, clearly and accessibly written, neutral, thorough, and fulfilling the brief. It is likely to be of interest to the DPC membership, and also to a much wider audience.’

The report will be well received by digital preservation practitioners interested in learning about the key developments in preservation metadata, especially as these developments concern the PREMIS Data Dictionary; and will appeal to anyone seeking to learn more about the general topic of preservation metadata.

The not-for-profit DPC is an advocate and catalyst for digital preservation. The coalition ensures its members can continue to deliver resilient long-term access to digital content and services through knowledge exchange, capacity building, assurance, advocacy and partnership. Its primary objective is raising awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. The DPC Technology Watch Reports support this objective through an advanced introduction to topics that have a major bearing on its vision to ‘make our digital memory accessible today.

The second edition of ‘Preservation Metadata’ is the latest in the state of the art Technology Watch Reports that give an advanced introduction to ensuring that high-value and vulnerable digital resources can be managed beyond the limits of technological obsolescence.

Read Brian Lavoie and Richard Gartner’s report ‘Preservation Metadata’ by downloading from the DPC website at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr13-03

Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) are delighted to announce the release of a preview version to DPC members of the latest in the series of DPC Technology Watch Reports, the Second Edition of ‘Preservation Metadata.’ Written by Brian Lavoie and Richard Gartner, and published in association with Charles Beagrie Ltd., this report focuses on new developments in preservation metadata since the last report, made possible by the emergence of PREMIS as a de facto international standard.

Specialists in the field of electronic information provision for digital preservation at OCLC Research and the Centre for E-Research at Kings College London, Brian and Richard pick up from the first edition of the report, telling us that ‘it is no exaggeration to assert that preservation metadata, and the PREMIS Data Dictionary in particular, have become part of best practice underpinning responsible long-term stewardship of digital materials.’

The report goes on to outline key implementation topics that have emerged since the publication of the PREMIS Data Dictionary, including community outreach, packaging, tools, PREMIS implementations in digital preservation systems and implementation resources.

The report is primarily intended for digital preservation practitioners interested in learning about the key developments in preservation metadata, especially as these developments concern the PREMIS Data Dictionary; and the report will also be of interest to anyone seeking to learn more about the general topic of preservation metadata.

Neil Beagrie, Director of Charles Beagrie Ltd praises the report, noting that “this is the 2nd edition of a deservedly popular DPC Technology Watch report first published in 2005. It has been extensively updated to reflect developments over the past eight years in preservation metadata practice. It is the first Tech Watch report to have a 2nd edition and the Editorial Report is committed to regularly reviewing the DPC reports list: both to commission work in new areas of interest to DPC members and the digital preservation community; and to identify further worthwhile revisions of existing technology watch reports.“

The DPC Technology Watch Reports identify, delineate, monitor and address topics that have a major bearing on ensuring our collected digital memory will be available tomorrow. They provide an advanced introduction in order to support those charged with ensuring a robust digital memory, and they are of general interest to a wide and international audience with interests in computing, information management, collections management and technology.

The reports are commissioned after consultation among DPC members about shared priorities and challenges; they are commissioned from experts; and they are thoroughly scrutinized by peers before being released. The authors are asked to provide reports that are informed, current, concise and balanced; that lower the barriers to participation in digital preservation; and that they are of wide utility. The reports are a distinctive and lasting contribution to the dissemination of good practice in digital preservation.

Preservation Metadata is  is the seventh report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

• The report is available as a preview to DPC members.
• If you’re not yet a member of the DPC you can get a preview by joining see: http://www.dpconline.org/join-us
• It will be released to the public in the third quarter of 2013.

Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition are delighted to announce the public release of the latest DPC Technology Watch Report ‘Web Archiving’ by Maureen Pennock. This is the fifth report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

‘Web Archiving,’  presents a constructive study of the fast-paced digital age and the pressures we face in attempting to capture web based information for the future. Maureen’s report outlines some of the current issues faced by organisations engaged in this challenging occupation. “The speed at which the web has become part of everyday life is unprecedented…Yet the very speed at which it develops poses a threat to our digital cultural memory, of its technical legacy, evolution and our social history,” she explains.

‘Web Archiving’ advises on some of the technical approaches to web archiving and, crucially, provides valuable information on the resources available to support organisations tackling this ‘moving target.’

Abbey Potter of the US Library of Congress has endorsed the report on behalf of the International Internet Preservation Consortium’s saying. ‘This is an excellent introduction to the topic of web archiving.” The UK’s National Archives’ Amanda Spencer concurs, praising the report as covering “all the significant themes and issues relating to web archiving today.”

The report has been eagerly awaited by those responsible for managing the lifecycle of web content and wishing to broaden their knowledge of web archiving prior to embarking on or revising their own initiatives. It has also been well received by organisations or individuals who are new to web archiving, and existing practitioners are finding value in the report’s summative nature.

The not-for-profit Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is an advocate and catalyst for digital preservation. The coalition ensures its members can continue to deliver resilient long-term access to digital content and services through knowledge exchange, capacity building, assurance, advocacy and partnership. Its primary objective is raising awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. The DPC Technology Watch Reports support this objective through an advanced introduction to topics that have a major bearing on its vision to ‘make our digital memory accessible today.

Web Archiving is the latest in the state of the art ‘Technology Watch Reports’ that give an advanced introduction to ensuring that high-value and vulnerable digital resources can be managed beyond the limits of technological obsolescence. Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd acts as managing editor of the series.

Maureen Pennock’s report ‘Web Archiving’ is available as a PDF from:  http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr13-01

Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition are delighted to announce the release of the DPC members’ preview of the latest Technology Watch Report ‘Web Archiving’. This is the fifth report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

‘The World Wide Web is a unique information resource of massive scale, explains Maureen Pennock the report’s author, ‘yet the lasting legacy of the web is at risk, threatened in part by the very speed at which it has become a success. Content is lost at an alarming rate, risking not just our digital cultural memory but also issues of organizational accountability.  In recognition of this threat, organizations have invested heavily in developing and implementing a range of web archiving solutions.’

‘This new report provides a state-of-the-art overview of the issues commonly faced and the technology in use.’

This report is aimed at anyone who wants to broaden their knowledge of web archiving before they embark on a web archiving initiative. It will appeal mainly to organizations or individuals who are relatively new to web archiving, though existing practitioners will also find value in the way it surveys the entire landscape.

Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd welcomed the report, ‘The web is critical to so many business functions whilst so few agencies have a specific plan to preserve content that supports these functions. This report will be a considerable help to any organization that thinks its web content is of lasting value, especially those engaged in web archiving initiatives.  Because it includes options for procuring third party services it make web archiving available to all without an existing preservation infrastructure.’

William Kilbride of the DPC commented, ‘This is the fifth Technology Watch Report we’ve released in the last two years.  Previous titles have been very popular, including such topics as Preserving Email, Preserving Digital Sound and Vision, Intellectual Property Rights for Preservation and Digital Forensics.  Maureen Pennock’s concise, authoritative and informative contribution makes the series an increasingly important reference collection for anyone interested in securing a lasting digital legacy.  I’m very grateful to Maureen for her work and I am certain that readers will be too.’

The DPC Technology Watch Reports identify, delineate, monitor and address topics that have a major bearing on ensuring our collected digital memory will be available tomorrow. They provide an advanced introduction in order to support those charged with ensuring a robust digital memory and they are of general interest to a wide and international audience with interests in computing, information management, collections management and technology. The reports are commissioned after consultation among DPC members about shared priorities and challenges; they are commissioned from experts; and they are thoroughly scrutinized by peers before being released. The authors are asked to provide reports that are informed, current, concise and balanced; that lower the barriers to participation in digital preservation; and that they are of wide utility. The reports are a distinctive and lasting contribution to the dissemination of good practice in digital preservation.

The report is available as a preview to DPC members at: http://www.dpconline.org/component/docman/doc_download/826-webarchivingpreviewmarch2013 (member login required)

If you’re not yet a member of the DPC you can get a preview by joining the DPC: http://www.dpconline.org/join-us

The report will be released to the general public in the second quarter of 2013.

Four reports have now been released in the new series of DPC Technology Watch titles and it is great to see the high-level of interest and praise they are gathering.

The Library of Congress voted the DPC Technology Watch reports into its “Top Ten Digital Preservation Developments of 2012”.

Individual reports have also been gathering praise for example Digital Forensics (see blog reviews by Jose Padilla in The Signal and Barbara Sierman in Digital Preservation Seeds) and IPR and Digital Preservation (see Current Cites January 2013 edited by Ray Tennant).

Part of the aim of the new series and adding DOIs for the reports and an ISSN for the series was to encourage more citations and reviews and to introduce the reports to a wider audience.

Although they are “e-only” and published electronically as PDFs, they are peer-reviewed, free to download and accessible to all. I hope we can encourage more editors of relevant professional print journals as well electronic media to consider reviews of e-titles in the DPC Technology Watch reports and bring them to the attention of the widest possible audience.

Additional new titles in the series to be released in 2013 include: Web-archiving; Preservation Metadata (2^nd edition); Preserving Computer-Aided Design (CAD); and Preservation, Trust and Continuing Access for e-journals.

We are pleased to announce the public release of ‘Digital Forensics and Preservation’ by Jeremy Leighton John– the latest in the popular DPC Technology Watch Report series.

‘Digital forensics is associated in many people’s minds primarily with criminal investigations’, explained the author, ‘but forensic methods have emerged as an essential source of tools and approaches for digital preservation, specifically for protecting and investigating evidence from the past.’

‘There are three basic principles in digital forensics: that the evidence is acquired without altering it; that this is demonstrably so; and that analysis is conducted in an accountable and repeatable way. Digital forensic processes, hardware and software have been designed to ensure compliance with these requirements.’

‘Forensic technologies allow archivists and curators to identify confidential content, establish a proper chain of custody, transfer data without changing it and detect forgeries and lost items. They can extract metadata and content, enable efficient indexing and searching, and facilitate the management of access.’

Cal Lee, an authority on digital forensics at the University of North Carolina welcomed the report. ‘Those who know Jeremy Leighton John’s work will not be surprised that he provides a great deal of food for thought in this report.  Jeremy has been a pioneer in the application of digital forensics to archival collections, and he has thought deeply about the implications of these activities.’

The report will be especially useful to those collecting and managing personal digital archives.  The diversity of objects and intricacy of their relationships make personal digital archives highly complex. Almost anything may appear in such an archive, from poet’s drafts, astronomer’s datasets, digital workings of mathematicians, and notes of political reformers. With their diverse content, organization and ancestry, personal digital archives are the epitome of unstructured information and serve as a test bed for refining preservation techniques more generally.

This is the fourth report in the DPC Technology Watch Series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors: recent titles have included Preserving Email, Preserving Digital Sound and Vision, and IPR for Digital Preservation.  Four more reports are in  development: Preservation, Trust and E-Journals; Preserving Computer Aided Design; Web Archiving; and Preservation Metadata.

The series editor has been supported by an Editorial Board drawn from DPC members and peer reviewers who have commented on the text prior to release.  The Editorial Board comprises William Kilbride (Chair), Neil Beagrie (Principal Investigator and Managing Editor for the series), Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth), Sarah Higgins (Archives and Records Association), Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin), Andrew McHugh (University of Glasgow), Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library).

The report is available online as a PDF file at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr12-03 .

The Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) web site has been updated today with links and details of other implementations based on the KRDS tools. Implementation added are as follows:

• The Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service
• Impact of the Archaeology Data Service
• The Value and Impact of the British Atmospheric Data Centre
• Business Models and Cost Estimation: Dryad Repository Case Study
• Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2): Extended Cost Model and Benefits Use Cases
• JISC DMI Programme: Business Models, Cost and Benefit Analyses Support Web Page
• Application of the Benefits Analysis Tools for MRC population health studies
• Research360 University of Bath

For further details see the KRDS project website.

If you have based implementations on KRDS tools we would be happy to add details to the list. Please send further  information to info@beagrie.com.

We are pleased to announce that the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK has published the report of the Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) to coincide with the launch of the new UK Data Service that succeeds it.

The ESDS has its origins in the UK Data Archive established over 40 years ago and this one of the longest standing research data archives and proponents of digital preservation in the World. The impact evaluation therefore may be of interest to the digital preservation and data curation communities beyond the social sciences and economics, particularly as quantitative as well as qualitative evidence of impact in our fields is still relatively rare.

The Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service report (PDF file) was produced by Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies (CSES) Victoria University and was authored by Neil Beagrie, John Houghton, Anna Palaiologk and Peter Williams. It combines approaches for qualitative and quantitative assessment of impact drawing on methodologies from Keeping Research Data Safe and more generally from economics and the social sciences.

An extract from the ESRC/ESDS press release of 24 July announcing the UK Data Service is as follows:

Continuing access to the most valuable collection of social and economic data in the UK has been secured with a £17 million investment over five years for the UK Data Service. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the new service is structured to support researchers in academia, business, third sector and all levels of government.

The new service, starting on 1 October 2012, will integrate the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), the Census Programme, the Secure Data Service and other elements of the data service infrastructure currently provided by the ESRC, including the UK Data Archive.

The integration follows an economic evaluation of ESDS, which reveals that for every pound currently invested in data and infrastructure, the service returns £5.40 in net economic value to users and other stakeholders.

The UK Data Service will provide a unified point of access to the extensive range of high quality economic and social data, including valuable census data. It is designed to provide seamless access and support to meet the current and future research demands of both academic and non-academic users, and to help them maximise the impact of their work.

“The UK Data Service represents a significant step forward in our strategy,” says ESRC’s Chief Executive, Professor Paul Boyle. “As data are the lifeblood of research, our aim is to consolidate resources in a way that expands both the reach and impact of these vital investments. It will become a cornerstone for UK research; the place to go for high quality data and support.”

“Between our services we have an impressive collection of rich research data,” says Dr Matthew Woollard, director of the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) and the UK Data Archive. “We are dedicated to the reuse, sharing and archiving of data because we know the effect it can have on the wider society. Together, we look forward to becoming the UK Data Service so we can continue to build on these excellent data and services to generate even more impact.”

The full press release can be accessed here.