South African Digitisation Initiative (SADI)

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    Who Keeps the Joker: Collection Development’s role in the digitisation of Archival Resources: UNISA’s experience.
    (2013-03-07) Botha, Marie
    At the University of South Africa, we recognised the need that the Library and Archives respond to the user needs as a single entity. At UNISA, we make every effort to service the different demands and needs of the scholarly community, as well as the general public through predominantly open access resources. The library acquires resources already developed in an e-environment, whilst the archives need to develop digital resources of valuable and rare content. With this in mind, we knew that we needed to work together to develop a channel which is easy to access to provide the needed information at the exact right time and in a digestible format. This places a huge demand on the skills base and competencies and abilities that are required for this very dedicated and expensive resource development. Access to unique archival resources is a very important aspect in serving the cultural fabric of the community at large. With this presentation we will share what we consider to be important aspects to address in the working relationship between the library and the archives in reaching the user at the point and exact time of needs. We will touch on basic collaboration that was followed to digitise archival content and will briefly share some aspects that we had to consider in the outsourcing of digitisation of archival resources.
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    From Ions to Bits – Managing Data in a National Research Centre
    (2013-03-07) Dr. Klump, Jens
    Managing data in active research projects is a challenging task. The innovative nature of research requires a flexible data infrastructure that is able to adapt to ad-hoc changes. How can this be reconciled with the necessity to streamline infrastructure services in order to keep cost at a sustainable level? What must data management services look like to integrate well into the everyday work of a researcher? In the past the focus of attention has been on large volume research data. However, most research data is small and complex, already highly enriched with contextual information. Managing this “long tail” of research data is labour-intensive and requires new strategies and technological solutions to allow sustainable operation. Eventually, the results of a project are published in the literature and should be accompanied by data publications. The data, now being part of the record of science, has to be citeable and has to be curated for a long period of time. Data publication and long-term preservation call for new services and for cooperation between infrastructure providers (computing centre) and memory institutions (library). 8 This talk will investigate the challenges and solutions for managing research data, taking research at GFZ as an example.
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    The Wits Digitisation Experience: Lessons Learned and Suggestions for National Collaboration
    (2013-03-07) Pickover, Michele
    The presentation will provide a brief background to the Wits Digitisation Centre, the services it delivers and strategies for the sustainability of the Centre. It will discuss our vision for an Integrated Resource Discovery platform for digital resources in the Library as well as digitisation policy development at Wits. Finally, it will allude to some of the technical and intellectual issues that need to be engaged with for collaboration across institutions and a possible way forward for a South African Digital Libraries and Archives Portal will be proposed.
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    Trusted Digital Archives. Experiences from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, nestor and DIN
    (2013-03-07) Dr. Keitel, Christian
    The presentation will address various solutions to users’ needs regarding authentic digital objects. It will describe the approach of a specific archive, the German standards on trustworthy digital archives and the procedure of the nestor certification. The most important factor for digital archives is their designated user. The user decides if he can trust the objects of the digital archive and with that he decides about the credibility of the entire archive. Hence, questions related to authenticity and trustworthiness are fundamental to the success or failure of the archive. We could distinguish two different user groups in this regard. Some users question the authenticity of individual archival objects (group 1), while most users look at the trustworthiness of the archive as a whole (group 2). The digital archive should serve both groups. The Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg is a regional state archive in Germany. We have designed and implemented a digital magazine (DIMAG) in 2006 and the free software tool IngestList in 2008 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ingestlist/). Both tools have some built-in functions to address the needs of group 1. nestor is the German competence network for digital preservation. It supports the cooperation between the main actors in the heritage sector (archives, libraries and museums). A nestor working group compiled a criteria catalogue on trustworthy digital archives between 2004 and 2008 (English version on http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0008-2010030806). On this basis, a 7 follow-up working group published the German standard DIN 31644 Trustworthy Digital Archives in 2012. Both this standard and the original criteria catalogue address the needs of both user groups. DIN 31644 stands between the Dutch Data Seal of Approval and the ISO 16363 Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories in terms of complexity and requirements. Each of these standardization initiatives has developed its own certification procedure. These three certification procedures compose the European Framework for Audit and Certification of Digitial Repositories (http://www.trusteddigitalrepository.eu). Finally, the presentation will outline the central elements of the nestor certification procedure versus DIN 31644.
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    SANBI and BHL-Africa: preserving biodiversity literature
    (2013-03-07) Fourie, Anne-Lise
    Abstract The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that digitise and make accessible the biodiversity literature held in collections and also literature available open access. Published literature on biological diversity has limited global distribution; much of it is available in only a few select libraries, yet literature about the biota existing in developing countries is often not available within their own borders. Access to published literature is one of the chief obstacles to research. The BHL consortium works with the international taxonomic community to ensure that biodiversity heritage is made available to a global audience through open access. BHL members digitise public domain books and journals and obtain permission from publishers for materials still under copyright. In partnership with Internet Archive, taxonomic communities and local digitisation efforts, BHL has digitised almost 40 million pages of scientific literature. BHL provides a range of services and APIs which allow users to harvest data files, species information and reuse content for research purposes. Since 2009, BHL has expanded and gBHL (global biodiversity heritage library) is a network of autonomous members operating programs and projects to make biodiversity literature. They are: BHL-Europe Chinese Academy of Sciences Atlas of Living Australia Brazil (through SciELO) Bibliotheca Alexandrina Coming soon is BHL Africa BHL Africa is an inclusive network of African libraries and institutions in Western, Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. BHL Africa’s guiding principles and values are: Open Access, Collaboration and Transparency. SANBI is legally mandated to manage biodiversity information. The Biodiversity Information Management Directorate (BIM) is responsible for the effective management of information and such information can be accessed through the Biodiversity Advisor http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org As the leading biodiversity institute in Africa, SANBI Libraries has been given the task to officially launch BHL Africa in April 2013.
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    A Policy Framework for the Digital Library
    (2013-03-07) Ubogu, Felix
    The paper argues that it is essential that an institution has an appropriate policy framework in place in order to ensure the long-term success of its digital library programme and that institutions do not have to reinvent the wheel but can adapt policies already in use by other institutions. Information gathered on digital libraries and repositories shows that many repositories do not have appropriate policies with regard to Content, Preservation, Metadata Re-use and Data Re-use. A comparison of the policies also shows a wide degree of variation, particularly in terms of depth and breadth of coverage. In South Africa, most institutions confirmed that they either had no policy or were in the process of drafting one.
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    Towards the Digital Institution
    (2013-03-07) Layton, Roger
    We are living at a unique point in history in which all memory institutions are being transformed from purely physical institutions towards the digital institution. This transformation could not occur in previous generations, since the technologies were not in place to support this change. This transformation should also be largely completed by the next generation in 20 years or so, with all institutions will have a digital structure which reflects and complements their physical structure. It is thus our generation’s responsibility, and perhaps ours alone in the long history of memory recording, to ensure that this transformation occurs properly, so that it benefits all future generations. 9 This transformation is a one-off event and it encompasses the entire institutional operation and is not confined merely to the capturing digital images and the creation of repositories. Rather, this transformation requires a total re-engineering of the institution, and requires a rapid catch-up in knowledge, capacity and technology within a sector which is largely populated with older specialists within insufficient knowledge of the digital world. This paper presents some key elements of this transformation with which we are currently engaged to help various institutions through this sea change. Our experience has been that few institutions have started to make significant moves into this digital transformation, although everyone has accepted its necessity, and we are now at the start of the real work which is needed throughout the entire sector. This has led me to identify three major areas of work to be done.
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    The Wits Digitisation Experience: Lessons Learned and Suggestions for National Collaboration
    (2013-03-07) Roberts, Charl
    The presentation will provide a brief background to the Wits Digitisation Centre, the services it delivers and strategies for the sustainability of the Centre. It will discuss our vision for an Integrated Resource Discovery platform for digital resources in the Library as well as digitisation policy development at Wits. Finally, it will allude to some of the technical and intellectual issues that need to be engaged with for collaboration across institutions and a possible way forward for a South African Digital Libraries and Archives Portal will be proposed.
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    Here today… here tomorrow: sustainable digital collections – the Stellenbosch experience.
    (2013-03-07) Seyffert, Mimi
    The aim of this paper is to share the experiences of Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service in developing a digital collections repository, with specific focus on heritage collections. The Library’s strategic intervention of supporting, developing and contributing to high-level scholarly publication output includes the strategic goal of digitising unique collections within the Library and Information Service. This goal has recently been given new impetus with Stellenbosch University joining the Research Libraries Consortium and benefiting from a Carnegie Corporation of New York grant for the digitisation of heritage collections. The paper will look at the various processes we undertook to realise the aims of the project: from selecting and preparing collections for digitisation, liaising with external service providers, choosing a platform to host the content, making the content accessible and ultimately adding value to the collections. I will also discuss the challenges in keeping the integrity of original heritage collections and not jeopardising their context when transforming hard copy to digital. Finally, the paper will examine the ways in which we as the Library and Information Service ourselves have made investments to make these projects sustainable and to ensure not only the maintenance, but also the growth and further development of our digital collections.
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    Simple Cultural Heritage Preservation
    (2013-03-07) Prof. Dr. Suleman, Hussein
    Software systems coupled with digitisation for the digital preservation of heritage have become the norm because of the opportunities for vastly better discovery and dissemination over traditional preservation techniques. However, these systems often are built on the premise that digitisation by itself will lead to preservation and little thought goes into the design of the software systems. It is proposed that the design of these software systems should be principle-based, where the core of such principles can be extracted from an analysis of successful preservation systems. Systems built on these principles will arguably provide the best platforms for digital preservation of heritage. Among these principles, the notion of simplicity is key. Recent and ongoing work provide many operational examples of how simplicity and related ideas can be incorporated into the design of systems to maintain or increase the level of functionality and, arguably, improve the ability to preserve both content and services in the long term.
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    Overview of the Carnegie / NRF Digitisation Project
    (2013-03-07) Spingies, Heinrich
    In 2008, the NRF was awarded a grant by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to implement a Digitisation and Preservation Centre. The presentation will provide the delegates with an overview of the project, the accomplishments and challenges experienced to date and the way forward.
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    Reprographic and Digital Services at the National Library of South Africa: an overview
    (2013-03-07) Drijfhout, Douwe
    An overview will be given of reprographic and digital services at the NLSA. Digitisation activities included the DISA Southern African Freedom Struggles 1950-1994 project, the UNESCO Memory of the World project and the World Digital Library. Research covered digitisation in Africa as well as a review of South African policy making with reference to the preservation of digital collections. Scanning services include ad hoc reprography and digital photography on request to library users. Policy development and the NLSA's digitisation vision is based on existing legislation and the draft National Policy for the Digitization of Heritage Resources as prepared by the Department of Arts and Culture. Future plans include the digitisation of historical newspapers representing the early years of the Black Press in South Africa. Proposed systems infrastructure (storage and preservation) will be explained.
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