[Dspace-general] Forthcoming digital repository meetings, 6-8 July 2005, Cambridge , UK

[Peter Morgan]

With apologies for cross-posting
---------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,

Dates for your diary: 6/7/8 July 2005 at the University of Cambridge

This is an initial announcement to let you know of two related meetings that
you might wish to attend.  

The Digital Curation Centre is planning to hold a DCC workshop in the UK at
the University of Cambridge on Wednesday 6 July 2005.  

Immediately following this, a second DSpace Federation User Group meeting
will be held, also at the University of Cambridge, on Thursday-Friday, 7-8
July 2005.  

The DCC workshop will be a training event on the long-term curation and
preservation of institutional 
repositories (regardless of software platform).   The DSpace meeting will
focus on issues specific to the use of the DSpace repository platform.   As
some participants will want to attend both events, the organisers of the two
meetings will co-ordinate registration and other arrangements as far as
possible.

Some preliminary information on the two events follows below.

*******************************************************

Digital Curation Centre workshop

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) was launched in November 2004 following a
recommendation in the JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation
Strategy (October 2002). The current partners of the DCC are the University
of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, UKOLN and the Council for the Central
Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC). The DCC is not itself a data
repository, nor do we attempt to impose policies and practices of one branch
of scholarship upon another. Rather, based on insight from a vibrant
research programme that addresses wider issues of data curation and
long-term preservation, we will develop and offer programmes of outreach and
practical services to assist those who must curate data. Rather than
duplicate effort, we seek to complement and contribute to the endeavours of
related organisations. 

Curation and preservation issues are integral to all digital repositories -
regardless of platform. As such, the DCC are cooperating with DSpace to
convene a one-day workshop to examine some of the major issues involved with
the long-term access to and re-use of data held within digital repositories
from a range of perspectives - including the HE/FE and e-science
communities. Themes for this event may include:

·	workflow and business models for the long-term curation and
sustainability of digital repositories
·	certification of digital repositories
·	roles and responsibilities
·	interoperability
·	metadata
·	policies

These issues will be explored through a mixture of panel discussions,
presentations, case studies and breakout sessions. The DCC is committed to
nurturing strong community relationships and a major aim for this event is
to create a forum for the sharing of experiences and ideas between a wide
range of stakeholders.  

*******************************************************

2nd DSpace Federation User Group meeting

The 1st DSpace Federation User Group meeting was held in Boston, USA, in
March 2004.  Organised by the DSpace team at MIT Libraries, it was a very
successful open 2-day meeting and was attended by approximately 120
delegates drawn from ten different countries.   It included several plenary
sessions and two parallel tracks, one focussing on technical issues and the
other on organisational policy.  (For presentations and a summary report,
see http://dspace.org/conference/conference.html) 

In the post-meeting evaluation it was concluded that many of the policy
issues were essentially platform-independent and not specific to DSpace
users, and that future discussion of such topics would be more appropriate
in a broader forum of those interested in digital repositories.  It followed
that future meetings of the DSpace Federation - the international community
of DSpace code contributors and users - should focus on issues that were
more specific to the architecture and functionality of the DSpace platform. 

The 2nd DSpace Federation User Group meeting is now being planned with this
in mind.  MIT Libraries have passed organisational responsibility for the
meeting to colleagues at Cambridge University working on the
DSpace at Cambridge project, a joint Cambridge-MIT initiative funded by the
Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI).  The July 2005 meeting, which will be partly
sponsored by CMI, will reflect both the need for a DSpace-specific agenda
and the international character of the DSpace Federation.  

The formal Call For Papers and invitation to register will be issued
shortly.

-- 
Peter Morgan 
Project Director, DSpace at Cambridge 
Cambridge University Library 
West Road 
Cambridge 
CB3 9DR 
UK 
email: pbm2 at cam.ac.uk 
tel: +44 (0)1223 333130 
fax: +44 (0)1223 339973  


Joy Davidson 
DCC Training Coordinator and ERPANET British Editor 
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) 
George Service House, 11 University Gardens, 
University of Glasgow 
Glasgow G12 8QJ 
Scotland 
Tel: +44(0)141 330 8592 
Fax: +44(0)141 330 3788 
email: british.editor at erpanet.org
http://www.dcc.ac.uk 
http://www.erpanet.org