Welsh history of World War One to go online

A project led by the National Library of Wales in partnership with the libraries, special collections, and archives of Wales has received £500,000 in funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for mass digitisation of primary sources relating to World War One.

The project will make available a unique digital collection revealing the hidden history of World War One as it affected all aspects of Welsh life, language and culture. The project will digitise printed and manuscript sources as well as moving image, audio and photographic material.  These source materials are presently fragmented and frequently inaccessible, yet collectively they form a unique resource of vital interest to researchers, students, and the public in Wales and beyond.

The digital collection will be available through a website, and enhanced through the use of translation tools to enable broadest access.

‘The online resource will provide an invaluable resource for teaching, research, and commemoration in time for the 100th anniversary of the start of the War,’ said Andrew Green, Librarian of the National Library of Wales. ‘This is a fantastic example of collaboration across the libraries, archives and special collections of Wales to make our unique materials available to the widest international audience via digitization.’

The project has been developed by WHELF (the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum). Collections to be digitised are from the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth University Special Collections, Archives and Special Collections, Bangor University, Trinity St David’s Special Collections, Swansea University, Cardiff University Library, the Archives of BBC Cymru Wales and archives and local records offices that are members of ARCW (Archives and Records Council, Wales). The People’s Collection Wales will gather content generated by communities and local and family historians. It will also digitise and in personal collections via outreach and targeted digitisation of significant material to enhance and complement the collections of the higher education partners. The unified, mass digital collection that will be created will represent the experience of the entire Welsh nation during World War One.

The content to be digitised has been selected in collaboration with academics in Wales and beyond, and the digital outputs of the project will lead to new research findings about Wales in World War One.

Paola Marchionni, JISC programme manager, said: “Through digitisation and collaborative working this project will bring together an impressive array of scattered content into one place and promises to become a key reference point for researchers and students looking at the Welsh experience of World War One. JISC is very proud to support this project which will also complement a number of other JISC funded World War One commemoration activities as well as national and international initiatives.”

The total cost of the digitisation project is £987,916. £500,000 in funding has been provided by the JISC Content programme 2011-13. Matched funding has been provided from institutional contributions from the project partners.

The project begins in February 2012, and the online resource will be launched in June 2013.

Jisc content programme

Jisc ww1 commemoration activities

For information, please contact Lorna Hughes, University of Wales Chair in Digital Collections, National Library of Wales: lorna.hughes@llgc.org.uk

Getting started in digital preservation – Cardiff

21 March 2011 at Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff

Following on from the very successful ‘Decoding the Digital’ conference, the British Library Preservation Advisory Centre and the Digital Preservation Coalition are running a series of events across the UK designed to raise awareness of digital preservation issues, increase involvement with digital preservation activities and sign-post the support and resources available to help you on your way.

Who should come?
The sessions are aimed at librarians, archivists and collection managers in all sectors and in all sizes of institution who want to find out more about digital preservation and the implications for their organisation of having to retain, manage and provide ongoing access to digital material.

Each day provides an introduction to digital preservation, builds an understanding of the risks to digital materials, includes practical sessions to help you apply digital preservation planning and tools, and features speakers sharing their own experience of putting digital preservation into practice.

Throughout the day participants will gain confidence in addressing digital preservation issues and knowledge of achievable steps to put theory into practice and safeguard vulnerable digital content.

How do I get a place?
Places are strictly limited and we expect them to be booked quickly. Early booking is recommended. Each event costs £25 + VAT but is free to DPC members.

For full programme details and to book, please visit:
http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/23-getting-started-in-digital-preservation-cardiff?xref=23

Turning the Pages

New technology designed to allow users to virtually ‘turn’ the pages of digitised books has been unveiled in Cardiff by the University’s Vice-Chancellor.

Dr David Grant and Professor Elizabeth Treasure, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, visited Information Services’ Special Collections and Archives (SCOLAR) section where the new 40” digital 3D touch-screen and Turning the Pages software is based.

The new software will give users the opportunity to view some of Wales’ oldest books and manuscripts, which form part of the collection of 14,000 rare items transferred to the University earlier in the year.

Users will be able to turn pages in real-life 3D mode, zoom in, magnify images, and admire some of the magnificently illustrated books and manuscripts in the University’s collections.

SCOLAR’s purchase of the touch-screen and software, as part of a grant from the Wolfson Trust, makes Cardiff the first institution in Wales to use such technology to display digital rare books.

Head of SCOLAR, Peter Keelan, said: “Cardiff University is the first institution in Wales to use Turning the Pages, and with the support of the Assembly Government and Cymal, we will now be making available portable versions of Turning the Pages to tour Wales – another first for SCOLAR.”

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/articles/turning-the-pages.html

Inspiring Research, Inspiring Scholarship

JISC has recently released a new report, Inspiring Research, Inspiring Scholarship, looking at the value and impact of digitised resources.

Written by Simon Tanner of King’s College London, it considers four broad areas in which the creation of digitised resources have has a significant impact.

http://bit.ly/9NjGw6 (pdf file)

The four themes are

*Inspiring Research* Digitised resources not only improves access but enable new types of research to be asked, such as the Data Mining with Criminal Intent project that is based on the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 – http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/

*Bestowing Economic Benefits* The digitisation of journals, such as the Wellcome Trust Medical Journal Backfiles project, provides free and immediate access for scientists. One digitised journal, the Biochemical Journal, receives over 300,000 uses a month – http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/medicaljournals.aspx

*Connecting People and Communities* Resources such as Great War Archive, gathering digitised memorabilia from World War One, not only provide new material for scholars, but enable new communities and expertise to be developed outside the campus walls – http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/

*Digital Britain* Digitising some of Britain’s special collections not only provides new data for educators and learners around the world, but also for a greater appreciation of the nation’s ‘prize jewels’; examples include the Freeze Frame collection of polar photographs, or the Old Weather resource for measuring and transcribing weather reports in Naval logbooks – http://www.freezeframe.ac.uk, http://www.oldweather.org/

Digital Information Conference 2010

28 October 2010 – Kings Place, London

Librarians and information professionals are faced with a large number of choices when migrating content online. CILIP’s Digital Information Conference titled ‘The challenge of choice’ provides delegates with clarity to interpret the implications for their organisations.

This comprehensive and thought provoking conference is divided into four key sessions and allows for extensive interaction and debate throughout the day. It is ideally timed to take a considered view of the post-Election social, political and economic environment and the potential impact of the Coalition Government’s policies. It provides a sounding board for those seeking to balance the need for innovation and continued service delivery with a changed environment defined by severe budget cuts and reduced resources.

Conference highlights include:

 *     leading industry experts, case studies and parallel sessions

*     presentation on dealing with new digital challenges in academic libraries

*     Publishers Lookup Award presentation

*     opportunity to question speakers and debate the issues

For a full programme and speaker information visit www.cilip.org.uk/digitalinfo2010 . Places are limited so book online today.

JISC Content: An introduction to digital collections and archives

Over the last decade JISC has licensed and digitised a large number of collections on behalf of the UK academic community.

There is now a new site which has been set up to provide a more user friendly way of navigating the content that JISC funding has helped make available to the HE and FE communities: http://www.jisc-content.ac.uk/

The site is a gateway that provides an brief descriptions of each collection, and offers users different ways to browse through these descriptions, and learn more about what is on offer.

The content currently includes material licensed by JISC Collections and material digitised via the two phases of the Digitisation Programme, the Enriching Digital Resources strand, and the first phase of the JISC – NEH (National Endowment for Humanities) Transatlantic work.

Let Paul Robeson Sing!

Swansea University has launched a new learning resource about Paul Robeson, the world renowned singer, actor and civil rights activist, and his links with Wales at the National Eisteddfod.

The bilingual learning resource has been developed by the South Wales Miners’ Library, Swansea University with the financial support of the Welsh Assembly Government and will be part of the new online People’s Collection Wales.

http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/cultureandsport/2010/100803robeson/?lang=en

Welsh Voices of the Great War Online

Welsh Voices of the Great War Online is a digital community heritage project established and co-ordinated by the School of History & Archaeology at Cardiff University which will run until February 2011. The project seeks to gather, catalogue and make public an undiscovered treasure trove of World War 1 artefacts and memorabilia which remain in private hands.

http://www.welshvoices.com/

Historic Welsh ballads online for a new global audience

Historic news once sung on street corners is now being captured online in a virtual resource. 4,000 ballads from 18th and 19th century Wales are launching on a website run by Cardiff University and the National Library of Wales.

The songs document the important issues of their day, such as workers’ rights and crime, as well as local festivals and village gossip.

Funded through a £66,000 grant from JISC, the project has completed a network of digital resources giving access to these precious documents. Academic editor of the Welsh Ballads project, Dr Wyn James of Cardiff University’s school of Welsh, commented: “Ballads were the ‘daily newspapers’ for the poor throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries, and were sold cheaply and widely at markets, fairs, and villages; they communicated news on local matters and overseas events of the day. “We have selected around 15,000 pages of rare Welsh and English language ballads and have now made them available for audiences around the world to study and enjoy.”

Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC, said: “The Welsh Ballads project puts in place the final piece of a national jigsaw of digitised ballads. Adding to the ballad collections of England and Scotland this new archive will help make this a unique and indispensable resource for researchers, students and interested members of the public. “This project is part of JISC’s continued work to enhance collections of significance, and ensure that resources are not left in isolation, but brought together for the benefit of research, teaching and learning for everyone.” Digitisation of the ballads collections was carried out in Cardiff University’s information services directorate and the National Library of Wales.

“With the funding from JISC we are able to put ballads studies in Wales on the world map, comparable with the best of other ballads projects in Britain and America,” said Janet Peters, director of university libraries at Cardiff. “Two rare ballads collections are now available from one website at Cardiff, jointly linked with a full catalogue and scanned pages at the National Library.”

Cardiff University also intends to make a small selection of sung audio recordings of some rare Welsh ballads available later in the year.

Listen to a pilot recording at: http://www.cf.ac.uk/insrv/libraries/scolar/digital/welshballads/wg3526030.html

Access the collection at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/libraries/scolar/digital/welshballads.html

Find out about how JISC is developing online content for teaching, learning and research at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation.aspx

Chair in Digital Collections

The National Library of Wales is currently seeking to fill a new Chair in Digital Collections, funded by the University of Wales.

“An opportunity for an outstanding individual from any relevant academic background, with a passion for the digital.

You will be expected to undertake and lead research based on the latest developments in your chosen field of expertise, while applying your findings to the large digital collections housed at the National Library of Wales.  You will have a world-class research profile in any aspect of digital curation: the creation, provision, investigation, interpretation and conservation of digital collections – encompassing legal issues, the management of data, innovative research methods, and technological developments in access, search and exploitation.”

http://www.llgc.org.uk/fileadmin/documents/adDisSwyddSaesPrifysgol.pdf

Closing date for receipt of applications: 9 August 2010.