What can libraries do for

researchers?

Michael Day

Digital Preservation Manager The British Library

EThOS Multimedia and non-text PhD workshop, The British Library,

London, 29 September 2016

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What can libraries do for researchers?

• Outline

– Digital preservation challenges

– Digital preservation at the British Library

– Web archives

– Thesis workflows

– Roles for libraries

• HEIs

• Others

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Digital preservation challenges

• A many layered challenge:

– Obsolescence

• Hardware, peripherals, storage devices, software, etc.

– Human factors

• Lack of documentation / metadata, dead links, complex

objects, software interdependencies, semantic drift

– Sustainability

• Solutions

– Active management of content (e.g., standardisation, secure

bit-level storage, monitoring of technologies, preservation

planning)

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Digital preservation challenges

[Example courtesy of Paul Wheatley, Digital Preservation Coalition]

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Digital preservation at the British Library

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Digital preservation at the British Library

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Digital preservation at the British Library

Flashback Project (2015-16)

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Web archives

• Websites continuously get restructured and/or disappear

– Studies of links from the research literature, monitoring “link

rot” and website changes

• Web archives

– Actively collecting Websites since the mid-1990s

– Internet Archive, content available via Wayback Machine

– UK Web Archive

• Open UK Web Archive – selective

• Legal Deposit UK Web Archive - domain harvesting, since

2013, >60 Tb each), limited access)

– Technological limitations to capture tools

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Thesis workflows (past)

Source: Victoria Catterson / Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cowlet/354911838

License: CC Attribution 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

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Thesis workflows (current and future)

• A much more diverse set of outputs

– Data, Software, Games, Audio, Multimedia, Websites, etc.

– Random file formats

• Some securely “linked to” the thesis, some not:

– Third-party services

– Standalone websites

• Current situation

– Essentially replicates the traditional workflow, substituting or

adding the deposit of PDF (and metadata)

– Growing provision for other file types, but generally treated

as exceptions (files are retained as submitted)

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Thesis workflows (current and future)

• Roles for libraries:

– Need for libraries to be more pro-active in supporting PhD

students, through whole process (not just involved in final

submission)

– Wider support for the research role of university (including

PhDs), part of emerging Research Data Management

activities

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Roles for libraries

• HEIs

– Advocacy and policy change

• Changing guidance for the “deposit” of eTheses

• Better understanding of institutional responsibilities for

etheses and supplementary content

• More direct engagement with the research process itself

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Roles for libraries

• HEIs

– Infrastructures

• Sharing

• Storage

– Supporting the management of content during the

research phase

» Backup procedures, shared storage, etc.

– Supporting the longevity of content now and into the

future

» Requirements here are less well understood

– Do institutional repositories have a role?

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Roles for libraries

• HEIs

– Training and skills development

• Needs to be focused at PhD level

• Data management plans

• Working with Doctoral Training Centres?

– Guidance

• Examples from ETDPlus project, e.g. on storage (backup,

etc.) metadata, file formats:

https://educopia.org/research/grants/etdplus

– But … what skills will libraries need to do this effectively?

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Roles for libraries

• National level

– Managing identifier infrastructures (e.g. DOIs, ORCID)

– Management of supplementary content

• Subject-based services, e.g. UK Data Archive, NERC data

centres

• National data services, e.g. DANS (Netherlands), ANDS

(Australia)

• Others, e.g. Figshare, Dryad, GitHub, etc.

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Roles for libraries

• National level

– Web archives

• UK Web Archive

• ArchiveIt (Internet Archive)

– The British Library

• Support for research embedded in current strategy,

“Living Knowledge”

• Sharing professional expertise, e.g. involvement in Digital

Preservation Coalition, International Internet Preservation

Consortium, Open Preservation Foundation

• Other services?

– EThOS

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Thank you

Source Alastair Dunning / Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alastair-dunning/8042902341

License: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode