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Digital Curation atDigital Curation at
the Wellcomethe WellcomeLibrary: The Story SoLibrary: The Story So
FarFar
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The Wellcome Library is one of the world's major
resources for the study of medical history, 750,000
books, 250,000 pictures
Archival collections date from antiquity to thepresent day
First (known) digital accession received in
November 2004
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Digital Curation in
Action
2005-Present
Current Library Strategyacknowledges the
importance of digital
material for the future of the
Library
Howeverfunding
patterns do not necessarily
reflect this!
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Digital Preservation System
Needed a system able to meet
the diverse needs of Archivists,
Systems Librarians and IT staff
Lengthy procurement exerciseonly identified one realistic
possibility
Should we buy an imperfect
system today or wait and see ifsomething better comes onto
the market tomorrow???
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Current Activities
Audit of existing digital holdings
Cataloguing Digital material
Educating staff and depositors
Writing and refining procedures as we go
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Existing Digital Holdings
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Cataloguing Digital
MaterialTraditional archival cataloguing methods still relevant
Necessary to adopt a broader approach
Utilise relationships with donors they can provide
valuable information
Well educated donors can save you a lot of work!
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Judith Langfields Diary
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Judith Langfields Diary
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Action on Smoking and
Health Depositing material since
1991
Emails and other
documents printed out
since c.1999
2010 hybrid accessioncontaining materials
relating to the Smoke
Free campaign 2003-2008
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Wellcome Trust Sanger
Institute November 2008, visited
Sanger to give a
presentation about digitalpreservation and ask for
volunteers
Senior Investigator Alex
Bateman agreed to give us
material
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Educating Donors
Traditionally archives have been
transferred at the end of their
lifecycle.
Regular transfers of current
material replace widows
deposit
Digital material not unique
donors can continue to access
material that has been archived
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Future Plans
Ultimate aim is to create a hybrid library: paper,
born-digital and digitised material together in one
collection
Target key individuals working in medicine and the
allied sciences
Continue to work collaboratively with other
organisations. The issue of digital preservation is to
big to be solved by one organisation
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Natalie Walters, Wellcome Library
Wellcome Library Digital Curation pages:
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node288.html
Libraries@Cambridge, 8th January 2010
Questions?
mailto:[email protected]://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node288.htmlhttp://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node288.htmlmailto:[email protected]