Digital Repository Ireland Digital Repository of Ireland Taisclann Dhigiteach na hÉireann

We have a vacancy for a Systems and Storage Developer, working on the DRI project at TCD. Closing date is 12 Noon on 29th May 2013. Details here: http://dri.ie/vacancies

Twitter response to the event now online at http://dri.ie/open-access-humanities-data#storify

The tweets significantly enrich the event by providing links to organisations, statements and projects mentioned by the speakers, and raising questions about aspects of the presentations.

Slides that accompanied talks by Prof. Laurent Romary and Dr. Sandra Collins also now online at http://dri.ie/open-access-humanities-data

Older news:
Bios have now been added to our Open Access to Humanities Data event on May 7, 2013, at 5:30pm in the Royal Irish Academy. RSVP required for this free event: c.ryan@ria.ie http://dri.ie/open-access-humanities-data  Hashtag is #OAdata

May 2013:

Please welcome the following new staff to DRI:

Catherine Ryan, Digital Archivist Assistant, Royal Irish Academy
Katie Blackwood, Research Assistant, Kilkenny Design Workshops demonstrator project, NIVAL at NCAD
Kate McCarthy, Programme Manager of DRI, Royal Irish Academy

February 2013:

Over the past month, we've had three new additions to the DRI team. We are pleased to welcome:

Helen Ryan, who is taking over as our Programme Manager at the RIA
Anna Deegan, UI and UX Designer at the Digital Media Centre at DIT
Monica Harasimiuk, Software Engineer - Internationalisation Team, also at the DMC at DIT.

January 2013:

We are delighted to announce the appointment of several new members to the DRI team over the last months:

James Wogan, Decipher Dissemination and Exploitation Manager, based at the RIA
Dr. Nuno Lopes, Research Associate at DERI, on secondment to us at the RIA
Rósmáire Ní Cholla, Digital Curator, based at NUIG
Kathryn Cassidy, Software Engineer at TCD's TCHPC
Stuart Kenny, Software Engineer at TCD's TCHPC

September 2012: Over the past few months, our team has grown. We are happy to welcome the following people to the DRI team:

Rebecca Grant, our new Digital Archivist, based at the Royal Irish Academy.
Dr. Natalie Harrower, our new Manager of Education and Outreach, also based at the Royal Irish Academy.
Mairead Heffron, who is taking over as Programme Manager of the DRI project while Paddi Leinster is on maternity leave.
Sinead Redmond, Software Engineer with an Foras Feasa, NUI Maynooth.
Raymond Noonan, Software engineer with an Foras Feasa, NUI Maynooth.

The National Principles for Open Access policy statement, of which the DRI were contributors via the National Steering Committee on Open Access Policy, was launched in October by Minister Sean Sherlock, TD, at our Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities conference. The report has been on our website since that point but we've been told it was hard to find, so we've now given it a more prominent place on our Publications page.

Watch Sandra on RTÉ news (at 1:44 min), speaking about the need for trusted digital preservation at the EDF2013 conference at Croke Park, Tuesday April 9, 2013:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWnPihz_gMk

Silicon Republic has published an article about the multi-institute collaboration between RTE, DERI and DRI, under the auspices of the new mega research centre INSIGHT: RTÉ to employ semantic web and big data to preserve Ireland’s memories

Also see the official press release about the collaboration, published 9 April, 2013 at the EDF2013 conference.

Summary: RTÉ Archives announce an ambitious collaboration with the newly announced SFI “Big Data” Research Centre called INSIGHT and the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), which will be carried out in DERI (NUI Galway) at INSIGHT, to develop an innovative semantic content discovery platform to open up the treasures of the RTÉ Archives.

From L-R: Prof. Mark Ferguson, Brid Dooley, Prof. Stefan Decker, Dr. Sandra Collins, Minister Alan Shatter, TD

Tuesday, 9 April, 2013: At the 2013 European Data Forum in Dublin, Head of RTÉ Archives Bríd Dooley, together with Professor Stefan Decker (INSIGHT and Director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute at NUI Galway), and Dr Sandra Collins, Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland, announced an ambitious, ground-breaking collaboration to develop an innovative cross-archival semantic content discovery platform as part of the new SFI INSIGHT data analytics centre, a joint initiative between UCD, NUI Galway, UCC and DCU.

Opening the event, Alan Shatter TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, said: “A key part of the Irish Government’s plan for growth and jobs is identifying areas where we believe Ireland can compete and win on the global stage.”

Minister Shatter added: “One such sector where our ambition is to be amongst the world’s best is in ‘Big Data’ and its analytics. The Irish Government believes that given our climate, educational and skills base and our existing major strengths in ICT, we can benefit significantly in terms of quality jobs and growth from the global expansion of this sector.”

“Analysing this explosion of data will revolutionise industries such as manufacturing and pharmaceutical production to further develop Europe's data economy and create good sustainable jobs in Ireland.”

Minister Shatter also spoke of the “need for a coherent and practical set of Data Protection rules at National and European Union levels”. Referring to the “new, and increasingly common, risks for privacy” that arise from technological advances, he emphasised the importance of ensuring “that Data Protection standards keep pace with the emerging technologies and new business models”. Progressing the new EU Data Protection regulation and securing agreement on its content he stated is “a priority of the Irish Presidency of the European Union.”

Minister Shatter concluded by saying: “Importantly, Big Data will have a huge societal impact with projects such as that proposed by the new Insight research centre in partnership with RTÉ Digital to explore the RTÉ archives, and open up avenues to investigate our cultural, historical, sporting and linguistic heritage and provide us with deep insights into what it means to be Irish.”

Speaking during the Opening Session of EDF2013, Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, said: “The Big Data sector is growing by 40% annually and as a nation we must ensure that we are developing the specialised skills needed to remain globally competitive. INSIGHT is a new national research centre in the field of data analytics that brings together the leading players from academia and industry in Ireland. This new SFI Research Centre will undertake research and develop new technologies that will attract dynamic partnerships with industry, further leverage investment for Europe, and ultimately help create high value jobs in Ireland and deliver economic and societal impact.”

Big Data is a global challenge that asks us to turn vast quantities of ubiquitous raw data into knowledge that will inform people and improve society, business, and health. The Irish Government, under the stewardship of Science Foundation Ireland, is making a major investment in Insight, the mega research centre that will use world-class data analytics to address Big Data. Minister Bruton, TD and Minister Sherlock, TD, announced this ground-breaking initiative in February 2013.

RTÉ is a partner in the INSIGHT research centre, and Bríd Dooley will work with Professor Stefan Decker (INSIGHT) and Dr Sandra Collins (Royal Irish Academy) to bring together the skills and experience of the internationally recognised semantic web and linked data centre and the national trusted digital repository, with the rich essence and curation skills of RTÉ, to open up the wealth of treasures in the RTÉ Archives.

Commenting on the project, Bríd Dooley, Head of RTÉ Archives, a division of RTÉ Digital, said: “Our key priorities at RTÉ Digital are to meet the needs of audiences now and in the future through innovation and technology, and by playing an active role within the Digital Economy. As RTÉ Archives is a national resource and a hugely valuable asset to the public, we cannot underestimate the significance of this partnership with the INSIGHT Centre and the Digital Repository of Ireland. Our vision is to enable RTÉ to further step-change its ability to meet audience needs and to provide a much richer discovery, analysis and access gateway to this culturally and historically important material through digital means.”

Dr Sandra Collins added: “This is a very important collaboration for the Digital Repository of Ireland. Preservation and access to our nation’s cultural and social heritage is our mission, and a critical part of this is the technology solutions to discover archival content – the essence that informs the narrative. In the age of Big Data, discovering the content, information and knowledge you want requires cross-disciplinary research, and partnering with RTÉ and INSIGHT is a wonderful opportunity to advance the state of the art.”

Professor Stefan Decker, also speaking at the conference, added that: “Linked data technologies are enabling the liberation of value out of archives. We are excited to do this research with RTÉ, transitioning the technologies into practise and contributing to society.”

-ends-

Click here for full details of SFI Research Centres announcement on 25 February 2013.

For further detail contact:

Dr Natalie Harrower, Digital Repository of Ireland, n.harrower@ria.ie

or

Caroline Stephens, RTÉ Digital Communications Manager @rtedigital, caroline.stephens@rte.ie 086 8422151

or

Ruth Hynes, Press & Information Executive , NUI Galway, ruth.hynes@nuigalway.ie,  091 495695

Throughout EDF2013, the conference on big data that runs Tues April 9 - Wed April 10 at Croke Park, Dublin, we'll be partnering with DERI to curate the social media conversation surrounding the event, and live updating on this page: http://www.dri.ie/edf2013-conversation.

With 350 participants and a wealth of international speakers, it is sure to be a lively exchange. Please feel free to join the conversation by using the hashtag #EDF_13   If you're not able to attend the event, you can participate by watching the live stream at: http://2013.data-forum.eu/edf2013-live-streaming. Full conference details are available on the EDF2013 website.

The Irish Traditional Music Archive and Inishowen Traditional Singers' Circle have launched the Inishowen Song Project.

This is a unique 2,000-item online microsite presenting the traditional singers and songs of the Inishowen peninsula, Co Donegal, and incorporating digital sound and video recordings, books, photographs, transcriptions of song texts, and metadata catalogue information for each item.

It is a collaborative project between the Irish Traditional Music Archive and the Inishowen Traditional Singers’ Circle and was funded by Inishowen Development Partnership to provide free and open access to field recordings made in the peninsula during the 1980s – 1990s. 

The Digital Repository of Ireland is honoured to be organising ALLEA's Scientific Symposium on the Management of Large Data Corpora, in Berlin on 29th April, 2013. ALLEA, the federation of All European Academies, brings together 52 Academies in more than 40 countries from the Council of Europe region. Drawing on the rich intellectual and historical resources of its member academies, ALLEA's policy work aims to address structural and policy issues facing Europe in science, research, and innovation, and to improve the framework under which science and scholarship can excel.

DRI's Director, Dr. Sandra Collins, was recently appointed Chair of the ALLEA working group on E-Humanities, which provides the focus for this year's Symposium. Panels in the Symposium will be addressing issues such as digital preservation and trusted archives, scholarly work and open access, and research infrastructures. The programme features experts in digital humanities and digital preservation and access from across Europe, and is being opened by Germany's Minister of Education and Research, Professor Johanna Wanka, and the EU's Deputy Director General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Dr. Zoran Stancic.

For more information on ALLEA, visit their website: http://www.allea.org

Storyscope, the storytelling platform developed by our partners at Decipher, has launched a Vimeo channel to explore responses to the software's trials over the coming months. Originally developed as a digital curation tool for museum professionals, the potential uses of Storyscope are rapidly expanding, and the interviews/demonstrations in the trials reflect this continued growth. Visit Storyscope's Vimeo Channel for more information.

...is starting to fill up. Book your place now: http://dri.ie/hydracamp

June 4-5, 2013 at the Royal Irish Academy

This two-day training event, from the APARSEN project in partnership with the Digital Repository of Ireland, will focus on the topic of ‘Trust’ in relation to the preservation of digital objects. Long established as a key issue for those in engaged in digital preservation, this event will aim to provide attendees with a deeper understanding of the topic and provide them with practical guidance on how they might manage trust within their own repository.

The first day, presented in a workshop format, will include presentations from the APARSEN project on its work on the audit and certification of repositories, and the capture and maintenance of authenticity and provenance information for digital objects. Presentations will also be made by a number of guest speakers, including staff from the DRI, and will include a discussion of issues surrounding trust for those engaged in data sharing and reuse. Attendees will also be encouraged to actively participate in a panel discussion on the topics covered.

The second day of the event will delve deeper into the issues of certification and authenticity and provenance, providing a half day of practically focused training on each. This training will include detailed presentations of APARSEN work, case studies and practical exercises.

We're very excited to be involved in the international, much-needed Research Data Alliance (RDA), which has been created to address the need for global data infrastructure coordination. Much like the IETA, but focused on sharing and exchanging data, RDA will help to "accelerate data-driven innovation." More here: https://www.icordi.eu/Content/NewsRoom.aspx?id=106

Dr Sandra Collins has been appointed Chair of the ALLEA (All European Academies) International E-Humanities Task Force.

ALLEA, the federation of All European Academies, was founded in 1994 and currently brings together 52 Academies in more than 40 countries from the Council of Europe region. Member Academies operate as learned societies, think tanks and research performing organisations. They are self- governing communities of leaders of scholarly enquiry across all fields of the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. ALLEA therefore provides access to an unparalleled human resource of intellectual excellence, experience and expertise.

Independent from political, commercial and ideological interests, ALLEA’s policy work seeks to contribute to improving the framework conditions under which science and scholarship can excel. Jointly with its Member Academies, ALLEA is in a position to address the full range of structural and policy issues facing Europe in science, research and innovation. In doing so, it is guided by a common understanding of Europe bound together by historical, social and political factors as well as for scientific and economic reasons.

Prof. Stock, the President of ALLEA, inaugurated the new E-Humanities Task Force in November 2012 in Berlin, and Dr. Collins was appointed as Chair.

The Task Force is charged with identifying and raising awareness for priorities and concerns of the E-Humanities, and contributing to the Open Access agenda from a Humanities and Social Sciences perspective, and building consensus for common standards and best practices in E-Humanities.

The next face-to-face meeting of the Task Force will be held in the Royal Irish Academy in May 2013.

http://www.allea.org

The Abbey Theatre has posted a job for a Project Archivist to work with the Abbey Theatre digitisation project. This is a unique opportunity to work on The Abbey Theatre / NUI Galway partnership to digitise the archival holdings of the Abbey Theatre and on other projects. The Project Archivist will work closely with the Abbey Theatre Archivist on the digitisation project and will work within the work-plan prepared by the Abbey Theatre Archivist. Deadline: 12pm on Friday 22nd March 2013. Details: Abbey Theatre Job Posting

On 25^th February 2013, the Irish government announced the largest ever state/industry co-funded research investment in Ireland: €200m of new Exchequer funds for 7 World Class Research Centres (and an additional €100m co-investment by industry partners). The Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy is a partner in the largest of these centres, the SFI-funded Insight Research Centre.

"We are very pleased to be a partner in this exciting new mega research centre," said Dr. Sandra Collins, Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland. "Insight brings together the leading national ‘Big Data’ research centres, enabling a unique offering of end-to-end, holistic approaches to data, which will firmly place Ireland on the international stage in this global research priority area. DRI’s participation is in the area of content discovery for archives of cultural and social data - AV, sound, text and images that form part of our national identity”.

Big Data is much like it sounds - massive data sets from all aspects of our information society. Big data poses a challenge to society because its sheer size means that it cannot generally be processed with common software tools. Examples include everything from the world's Twitter stream (well over 200 million tweets per day) to the Large Hadron Collider, which has 150 million sensors delivering data 40 million times per second, resulting in a yearly data output that would fit on 20 kilometres of CDs piled into the sky. But at the same time that it poses a challenge to technologists, it also provides a wealth of possibilities: properly collected, filtered, preserved and analysed, it is a rich resource for understanding and improving the way our world works. (See Big Data Loses its Shackles).

BASIC FACTS (SFI)

INSIGHT: Ireland’s Big Data and Analytics Research Centre

Lead Principal Investigators:

· Dr Brian Caulfield, TRIL Centre Director, UCD

· Professor Padraig Cunningham, Professor (Director Clique), UCD

· Professor Stefan Decker, Professor for Digital Enterprise, Director of DERI, NUIG

· Professor Barry O’Sullivan, Professor (Chair of Constraint Programming) and Director of 4C, UCC

· Professor Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing, DCU

· Professor Barry Smyth, DIGITAL Chair of Computer Science / CLARITY Director, UCD

Partner Institutions include: UCD, UCC, NUIG, DCU, BDI (DCU), CSO Cork, National Library of Ireland, Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy.

Number of Industry Partners: 45​​

Research Summary: The commoditization of connectivity and content through the Internet has highlighted how always-on data services can transform almost every aspect of our lives. As we enter the age of “Big Data”, we will witness an unprecedented shift in the quantity and quality of information from all aspects of our lives. This will provide an unlimited source of raw material for a new generation of transformative knowledge-based industries, from new visions of healthcare to novel location-based and discovery based services. The ability to mine insights from these data is a new basis for sustained advantage in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. INSIGHT integrates four world-class research centres to position Ireland at the heart of data analytics research and develop a scalable and sustainable eco-system for education, investment, and industry in this crucial technology sector. INSIGHT will develop breakthrough data analytics technologies to deal with the volume, variety and velocity challenges of Big Data helping individuals, communities, organisations and societies to make better decisions: better decisions about where we might live; better decisions about the food we eat and the exercise we should take; better decisions by our governments when it comes to investing in education, energy, food, healthcare and infrastructure. Funded by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Science Foundation Ireland.

More information: Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Press Release

Two postdoctoral researchers are being recruited to work on the Programmable City project with Rob Kitchin at the National Institute for Regional and Spacial Analysis (NIRSA) at NUI Maynooth:

As a result of a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award to Prof. Rob Kitchin, we are seeking two postdoctoral researchers and four doctoral students to work on the Programmable City project. The project will be based in the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The project will run over 5 years and be staffed by 4 postdocs and 4 PhD students.  The project focuses on the intersection of smart urbanism, ubiquitous computing and big data from a software studies/critical geography perspective, comparing Dublin and Boston and other locales.

Further details on the project and the positions can be found via the links below.

Postdoctoral Researchers x 2 Posts
Closing date for applications *22nd March 2013*
Further details available here http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/postdoc.pdf

Funded PhDs x 4 Posts
Closing date for applications *12th April 2013*
Further details available here http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/student.pdf

Queries about the posts should be directed to Rob Kitchin

Our partners at Decipher have started trialing their curation platform software Storyscope, and a lot of excitement is being generated around the growing number of possible uses for the storytelling platform. You can read about the Storyscope trials here. For more information on a previous application of Storyscope, see the press release about DRI and Decipher's Hackathon win, which combined Storyscope with the Europeana API to deliver a narrative about Irish soldiers and nurses on the Western Front of the Great War.

We are pleased to announce that DRI will be represented at the annual international Digital Humanities conference, DH2013, taking place 16-19 July 2013 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Sharon Webb (DRI's Requirements Analyst at An Foras Feasa, NUI Maynooth) and Dr. John G. Keating (Associate Director of An Foras Feasa and NUIM's Principal Investigator for DRI) were accepted to present their paper, "User ethnographies: informing requirements specifications for Ireland’s, national, trusted digital repository", at the annual event, organised and hosted this year by the Center for Digital Researching in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Details of the conference can be found here.

In order to recognize outstanding enterprises and individuals, who have shown extraordinary vision and execution in the field of linked enterprise data management for their use of linked (open) data to start more efficient data management, EDF2013 is delighted to launch the European Data Innovator Award. The 2013 European Data Innovator award was made possible by eccenca, a spin-off of Brox IT Solutions and AKSW Research group from University of Leipzig, Germany. The award will be presented at the European Data Forum 2013 on the first conference day in the course of the morning session - and will be handed over by representatives of the European Commission and the Irish Government together with Hans Christian Brockmann of eccenta. The DRI is helping to organise EDF2013, and has invited speakers to present on the topic of audio-visual big data.

We are pleased to announce that the DRI's Educational Technologist, Dr. Natalie Harrower, is the recipient of a scholarship from the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) to attend the top-notch Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP) at the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC). The DPTP combines organisational and technological perspectives on digital preservation for institutions, and is widely acknowledged as one of the best training programmes available for information management professionals.

Here is the full press release from the DPC:

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Feb 27, 2013:

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to announce that it has awarded eight scholarships so that members can attend the Digital Preservation Training Programme in London at the start of March.

'These scholarships are very popular.  Specialist training is hard to find and staff development budgets are being tightly squeezed’, explained Richard Ovenden, Chair of the DPC. ‘We received a record number of applications this round, so we decided that we should try to respond to our members’ need by offering the largest numbers of scholarships so far.  It’s a measure of our commitment to the workforce and it will have an impact across a wide range of institutions.’

The following were selected by a small panel of judges which met to review the applications submitted:

• Sarah Arnold (University of Portsmouth)
• Tom Ensom (UK Data Archive)
• Katie Green (Archaeoloy Data Service)
• Natalie Harrower (Digital Repository of Ireland)
• Jenny Hunt (National Records of Scotland)
• Adele Redhead (HATII, University of Glasgow)
• Kevin Roberts (Archives and Records Association)
• Rocio Von Jungenfeld (University of Edinburgh)

Applicants were assessed against three main criteria: the role that DPTP would play in career development; the benefits to their organisation from attendance and the extent to which the applicant's job profile within the organisation pertains to digital preservation. Applications were open to DPC members and associates.
William Kilbride, Executive Director of the DPC reflected on the scheme: 'Specialised skills in digital preservation is a clear strategic priority for organisations that depend on long-lasting data to stay in business or which generate, collect and manage large volumes of data, but it's also time consuming and expensive to produce. By guaranteeing a number of places on training courses like DPTP we reduce the risk that the organisers run. So, although we're not able to fund all the excellent applications we receive, we can still help ensure that the training is offered.'

The Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP) is designed for all those working in institutional information management who are grappling with fundamental issues of digital preservation. It provides the skills and knowledge necessary for institutions to combine organisational and technological perspectives, and devise an appropriate response to the challenges that digital preservation needs present. DPTP is operated and organised by the University of London Computer Centre in collaboration with the DPC.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is a not-for profit membership organisation whose primary objective is to raise awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. It acts as an enabling and agenda-setting body within the digital preservation world and works to meet this objective through a number of high level goals. Its vision is to make our digital memory accessible tomorrow.

• For more information on the Digital Preservation Training Programme see: http://www.dptp.org/
• To join the DPC see: http://www.dpconline.org/join-us

Original Link: http://www.dpconline.org/newsroom/latest-news/972-march2013-dptp-scholarships

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We've created a Scoop.it page in order to collect interesting news items, published reports, calls for papers, etc. Too often we post great links to Twitter, only for them to be lost, in a sense, to the rapidly growing list of tweets. This way, we can come back to the great content we're finding on the web, and hope you will too. Please check out, follow, comment on, or just enjoy our Scoop.it page.

We have a guest blog by Natalie Harrower on Europeana pro today, which talks about the work we did with Decipher in October, connecting the Storyscope platform to the Europeana API. You can read it here: http://www.scoop.it/t/dri-digest/p/3996019119/what-s-the-scope-of-your-s...

We are delighted to announce that we've become a member of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). The DPC is a not-for-profit membership organisation that advocates for digital preservation, with a vision towards making our digital memory accessible in the future. The DRI is hosting a two day workshop by the DPC and the APARSEN project at the Royal Irish Academy, June 4-5th, 2013. Details coming soon.

Today's Press Release from the DPC:

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome the Digital Repository of Ireland as its newest member.

"The Digital Repository of Ireland is building an interactive and trusted national digital repository," explained Dr. Sandra Collins, Director of the DRI. "The repository will feature social and cultural data held by Irish institutions, from both contemporary and historical sources. We are working to raise awareness of the need for digital preservation and the benefits of open access, while respecting and acknowledging ownership, copyright, intellectual property rights, privacy and confidentiality."
 
"Joining the DPC means we can strengthen our relationships with others working in the field, work together in advocacy and awareness-raising, and participate in training and projects that help to build capacity in our sector."
 
William Kilbride of the Coalition, welcomed DRI.  ''We are delighted that they have decided to join us. Their membership will strengthen their work by giving them priority access to staff development, knowledge exchange and other leaders in the field. But it will also strengthen the Coalition. In a relatively short time, DRI has established itself as a leader in the field with an ambitious mandate and a dynamic and impressive mix of staff and expertise.  Moreover, the way that DRI is structured means that we will be able to engage with a wider range of stakeholders in Ireland than we’ve done before."

• For more about the Digital Repository of Ireland see: http://www.dri.ie/
• For more about the Digital Preservation Coalition, or to join see: http://www.dpconline.org/join-us

Professor Rob Kitchin (NUIM), a member of DRI's Management Board, has been awarded a €2.3m grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for his project 'The Programmable City', which will analyse how technology influences how we live, work and operate in cities. He will be recruiting a team of post-doctoral reasearchers and PhD students to use the cities of Dublin and Boston as case studies. The ERC awarded €680 million to 302 researchers in Europe through its latest Advanced Grant competition.

Prof. Kitchin  was interviewed on RTE's Morning Ireland today, and the award was covered by The Irish times, The Journal, and Silicon Republic, among others.

For more information about the project, read Rob's blog or follow him on Twitter @RobKitchin.

The DRI is helping to organise the next European Data Forum conference (EDF2013), which will be held at Croke Park on the 9th-10th of April, 2013. The topic is Big Data. See the press release for more information.

We are excited to announce that the DRI, under the auspices of The Royal Irish Academy, became a partner in the FP7 project Decipher. The Decipher project is a three-year, €4.3 million Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) supported by the European Commission. It aims to support the discovery and exploration of cultural heritage through story and narrative. Decipher is developing new solutions to the whole range of narrative construction, knowledge visualisation and display problems for museums. This month, we appointed James Wogan as the Dissemination and Exploitation Manager on the project.

Job Vacancy for a DECIPHER Project Assistant at the National Gallery of Ireland. Fixed term (1 year) contract. The closing date for receipt of completed applications is: Friday 25th January 2013 at 4pm. Details: http://decipher-research.eu//upcoming-events

Welcome to 2013!

DRI's partner an tAcadamh at NUIG Galway has been bequeathed the important personal archives of Éamon de Buitléar, and will undertaken a significant digitisation project. The Eamon de Buitléar  programmes are an integral part of RTÉ Television history and the RTÉ Archives manages a collection of over 300 titles, preserving and cataloguing the  film materials produced and broadcast  by RTÉ from 1967 onwards.  RTE has agreed to work in partnership  with NUIG  given the synergies with the collections involved.  The de Buitléar archive consists of film, audiotape, photographs, correspondence, files and audiovisual equipment, spread over approximately 10 boxes of paper based material, 2000 audio-tapes, 100 Digital Audio Tapes 500 beta-video tapes, 100 cans of film. NUI Galway will digitise, catalogue, preserve and enable access to the archive through a partnership between Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge and the James Hardiman Library. It is expected that the project will take two years. The digital archive will be accessible at the new Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Building adjoining the James Hardiman Library on the main NUI Galway campus and at an tAcadamh’s Gaeltacht centres: Carna, Gaoth Dobhair, an Cheathrú Rua. The original materials will be stored and accessible via the Library. The DRI looks forward to working with NUI Galway in realizing the enormous potential of this fascinating collection.

As noted in their press release, "Playing a key role in the Digital Repository of Ireland, the University is uniquely positioned to exploit the archive material and place it in a framework which will facilitate scholarly access and public engagement while working with partners such as RTÉ Archives to develop common protocols and best practice in the conservation of & public access to the national audio-visual heritage."

The Éamon de Buitléar Archive is an exceptional and unique collection of multimedia material which reflects an outstanding body of work spanning some sixty years. The Archive consists of various media including papers, scripts and manuscripts, animation, film and video, music and audio recordings, books and broadcast equipment. The primary themes of the collection are film-making, the environment, traditional music and material relating to the de Buitléar family. Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge and the James Hardiman Library will digitise and manage the archive to facilitate access by researchers, students and the Gaeltacht community in the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Further information

Maidir leis an gCartlann:

Mórchnuasach neamhchoitianta é cartlann Éamoin de Buitléar d’ábhar ilmheáin a léiríonn saothar ildánach le trí scór bliain anuas. Tá láimhscríbhinní, scannáin agus ábhar físe den uile chineál, cartlann de théipeanna fuaime agus ceoil, scripteanna, trealamh craolacháin agus leabhair i measc na meán éagsúil sa chnuasach eisceachtúil seo. Cuimsítear téamaí a bhaineann leis an gcraoltóireacht, an timpeallacht, ár gceol dúchais agus ábhar a bhaineann le teaghlach agus comhluadar Éamoin sa bhailiúchán. Déanfaidh Leabharlann Shéamais Uí Ardagáin agus Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge an chartlann a dhigitiú agus a bhainistiú in Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh, le go mbeadh teacht ag scoláirí, mic léinn agus pobal na Gaeltachta ar an ábhar.

Tuilleadh Eolais

The ARA has welcomed the DRI Report on Digital Archiving in Ireland, calling it "essential reading for archivists, records managers and those with an interest in archives." Read the full posting on the ARA website.

Followup info from Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities now available in our Media Mashup

New Methods/New Perspectives on Humanities Scholarship: A NeDimah/DARIAH Workshop

Tuesday 27 November 2012, 9.00am-3.00pm

Trinity Long Room Hub, Dublin, Ireland

For registration see http://nedimahdublin2012.eventbrite.com/

Digital technologies have opened up a wealth of methodologies that can augment and enhance more traditional research practice, allowing new ways to engage with the ever-growing web of digital data. This one-day workshop hosted by NeDIMAH with support from DARIAH will provide an introduction to these methods

NeDiMAH (Network for Digital Methods in the Arts and Humanities) is an ESF-funded network investigating the use and impact of digital methods on arts and humanities research in Europe. As part of the network's ongoing work, Trinity College’s Long Room Hub will be the venue for a free one-day symposium to analyse and evaluate the methods thus far developed within the network, and identify ways in which it can further assist scholarly research being carried out in the Digital Arts and Humanities.

This workshop will focus on the core areas which NeDIMAH has been investigating: space and time; information visualisation; linked data and ontological methods; building and developing collections for digital data for research; using large-scale text collections for research; digital scholarly editions; and  the impact of digital methods on scholarly publishing.

We invite digital humanists at all different career levels, from MPhil students to advanced researchers, to join us for this event.  Your experience and feedback is vital to the ongoing work of NeDIMAH and DARIAH.

The event is free but registration is required at  http://nedimahdublin2012.eventbrite.com/

For further information about NeDimah see http://nedimah.eu; about DARIAH see http://dariah.eu; and on DH@TCD see http://dh.tcd.ie/dh

Vicky Garnett

DH@TCD

An Foras Feasas has announced that John Bradley, King's College London, will deliver the AFF Digital Humanities Research Seminar at NUI Maynooth on Wednesday 21 November at 3pm. The title of the seminar is 'Being Englebartian? Thoughts on Digital Tools for Humanists.' 

John Bradley is a Senior Analyst for Humanities Computing at King's College London. He began working in the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King's in March, 1997, and worked previously in the Information Commons at the University of Toronto. John has a particular interest in Humanities Computing and is enjoying focusing on this field in his current position. Within the Humanities computing field John's particular interests and responsibilities include:

•    Text Markup and Analysis Tools

•    Web based Electronic Publishing

•    Humanities applications for Databases

The Seminar will take place in the AFF Boardroom (1.26, Iontas Building). All are very welcome to attend.

In September 2012, the DRI  team at the Hack4Europe! hackathon won the award for "Application with Greatest Social Impact".

The hackathon was organised by Europeana to encourage teams to use their newly released API to exploit the Europeana content. After two days of hacking away at the vast collections on Europeana, the Digital Repository of Ireland hackathon team won the award for "Application with the Greatest Social Impact" for their WWI project Ireland on the Western Front. The teams were judged by an international panel of experts, and the award was presented by Jimmy Deenihan, TD, Minster for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, at a reception in the Science Gallery at TCD.

L-R: Paula McGloin (DIT), Damien Gallagher (NUIM), Cormac Farrell (DIT), Sandra Collins (DRI), Jan Molendijk (Europeana), Natalie Harrower (RIA), Jimmy Deenihan, TD, Jimmy Tang (TCD), James Wogan (DIT), Mark Maguire (IMMA)

Ireland on the Western Front is an application that allows users to combine digitised versions of personal/familial objects (e.g. war medals, old photographs, birth certificates) with digital objects from Europeana's collections (e.g. maps, war proclamations, artistic representations) in order to create an individualised narrative about the Great War. The created 'storyscope' paints a picture of a fragment in time - a linked virtual scrapbook of sorts - drawing on anything from a soldier's movements through the trenches of the Somme, to the larger social and political events of the time period. In short, it enables users to become private digital curators.

Focusing on the last month of the war, the DRI team was able to trace the lives of several individuals from varied backgrounds who were all in the Somme region on October 4, 1918. Over the two day hackathon, the team demonstrated the brief intersection in time and space of a young lieutenant from the Royal Munster Fusiliers, a private from the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers, a war nurse from Co. Down, and a German soldier who took extensive photographs of the battlefields. The technological innovation was to combine a visual online story space based on previous work from the DECIPHER team at the Digital Media Centre, DIT, with Europeana's search API. As a result, users can search Europeana directly through Storyscope, based on a wide variety of search terms. As presented to the judges, the team sees this project as a way to connect usesr from different cultural backgrounds through the lens of WWI experiences -- a 'common ground' that once proved so divisive for these users' ancestors.

Our partners at DECIPHER have posted a screencast walkthrough of the concept:

Hack4Europe! 2012 Dublin was organised by The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Irish Manuscripts Commission, the Digital Humanities Observatory and Fáilte Ireland in conjunction with the Europeana Foundation. The DRI would like to thank these partners for their work in producing such an exciting and well-organised event.

The DRI team included Eoin Kilfeather and Evin McCarthy from DIT, with the following hackers on the ground: Cormac Farrell (DIT), Dermot Frost (TCD) Damien Gallagher (NUIM), Natalie Harrower (RIA), Mark Maguire (IMMA), Paula McGloin (DIT), Jimmy Tang (TCD), and James Wogan (DIT).

Periodically we send out emails about events and activities related to the DRI. If you would like to join our mailing list, you can subscribe by visiting the Contact page.

The Irish Qualitative Data Archive is organising and we are co-hosting a Qualitative Data Workshop on Nov 20-21 at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The purpose of the workshop is to examine the contribution that qualitative social science researchers and archivists can make to the DASISH project, and to ensure their involvement and co-operation. For registration and programme information, see: http://www.iqda.ie/content/dasish-qualitative-data-workshop-20th-21st-no...

The DECIPHER project team are attending the Museums Association conference in Edinburgh. The team has been busy over the last two months, engaging museum professionals from the National Gallery of Ireland and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in initial trials of the project's prototype system.

DECIPHER’s prototype system is now called Storyscope. For those museum professionals who research and tell stories about cultural content, Storyscope provides software tools which can help build more compelling narratives. Stories are used in museums to engage visitors with cultural collections and to facilitate meaningful understanding of museum objects.

Through stories, Storyscope users can explore not just collections of individual objects, but the knowledge structures that connect and give them meaning. A key feature of Storyscope is the creation of Dossiers which allow users to assemble, organise and view their research materials.

You can folllow Storyscope's progress at the Museums Association conference here: http://decipher-research.eu/decipher-museums-association-conference

Our first national report, Digital Archiving in Ireland: National Survey of the Humanities and Social Sciences, co-authored by Aileen O'Carroll and Sharon Webb, is now available for download on our Publications page. For an overview of the report, please see our archive video of the presentation by the authors, and the official launch by Minister Sean Sherlock, TD on October 23, 2012.

Videos of our speakers' presentations from last week's Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities conference are now available as links from the Programme page of the conference website. Slides will be posted later in the week.

Press release from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation.  original link

Minister Sherlock acknowledges Ireland's Digital Archiving strengths

‘Digital Repository of Ireland is a champion of digital innovation in Ireland with a multitude of applicable uses for societal and economic development internationally’ - Sherlock

From L-R: Natalie Harrower; Minister Sean Sherlock, TD; Sandra Collins and Mairéad Heffron holding the report co-authored by Aileen O'Carroll and Sharon Webb of The National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Photo Credit: Johnny Bambury

Speaking at the the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) conference event “Realising the Opportunities in Digital Humanities” Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock TD, highlighted the importance of Digital Humanities in “Boosting Ireland’s image and reputation through the global exposure of Ireland’s culture and heritage through digital means”.

The three day Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) conference which concludes today (Thursday) was attended by over 200 national and international attendees.

Minister Sherlock stated that “The area of Data Repositories preservation, and access, is an important part of harnessing Ireland’s human capital – and a great way to link the past with the present and the future.” The Minister emphasised to those present, which included a sizeable international contingent including EU representatives, that “Research and innovation is a cornerstone of Ireland’s overall economic development and that the Humanities and Social Sciences are very much a part of our research and innovation agenda.”

The DRI is an online digital resource and a national digital infrastructure. Digitised cultural material is an important resource for European cultural and creative industries. European Cultural Heritage is the world’s most diverse and richest, and is of significant economic importance to industries such as tourism, heritage conservation, education and music amongst many other areas.

Minister Sherlock added “I was extremely impressed by the diverse and exciting range of presentations on show here today in Croke Park, and how each in their own way are contributing significantly to the further development of Ireland.”

During his address Minister Sherlock also launched the DRI’s national report entitled ‘Digital Archiving in Ireland - National Survey of the Humanities and Social Sciences’, commenting that “the Digital Repository of Ireland is now coming into its own as a champion of digital innovation in Ireland.”

Authors Aileen O'Carroll and Sharon Webb from NUIM hold their report with DRI Director Sandra Collins. Photo Credit: Johnny Bambury

The DRI event is central to one of Ireland’s national research priority areas in Digital Platforms, Content & Applications. Research prioritisation is a core element of the Irish Government’s jobs agenda.

Speaking at the event the Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland, Dr. Sandra Collins said “The DRI is building a vast interactive national digital repository for contemporary and historical, social and cultural data held by numerous Irish institutions. The aim is to link together and preserve this data by providing a central internet access point and interactive multimedia tools for use by the public, students and scholars. “

Dr. Collins added “A core aspect of the work of the DRI is that we are building richer, deeper stories which are constructed through accessing multiple complementary collections of content in a single location. And it is terrific to be able to say that through various supports from Government and other partners that Ireland is truly amongst the leaders globally in Digital Humanities.”

The conference is being held to showcase Ireland’s strengths in digitisation with the support of the Royal Irish Academy, the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) which is a Science Foundation Ireland funded CSET; the Digital Humanities Observatory and the EU funded Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH).

A truly diverse range of speakers and participants are involved which include the National Library of Ireland, Microsoft Research (USA), Google (USA), National archives of Ireland, the BBC, RTE, IBM (Ireland), The Higher Education Authority, Oxford University, The National Library of the Netherlands, RTE Radio na Gaeltachta, Kings College London, the Digital Preservation Coalition UK and the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Germany.

The DRI is part-funded by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through an award totalling €5.2m over four years under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, which is administered by the Higher Education Authority.

ENDS

For more information :

Dr Natalie Harrower, Manager, Education & Outreach, Digital Repository of Ireland
Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2

tel: +353 (0) 609 0960 n.harrower@ria.ie, www.dri.ie

DJEI Press Office – Tel +353 (0) 6312200

Pictures of Minister Sherlock's visit to Day 1 of our conference (at Croke Park) are now in an album on our Facebook page. Tags and more pics coming soon...

We have confirmation that we will be live streaming our talks for the conference. HEAnet is doing the filming and hosting the feed at http://flashhost.heanet.ie/digital_humanities/  Join us virtually if you can't join us in person!

#RODH2012 is the hashtag for Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities, Oct 23 - 25, 2012. We also invite you to post on our Facebook page: facebook.com/digitalrepositoryireland

The full list of digital humanities projects that will be demonstrating on Day 1 of our workshop (at Croke Park) is now up on the website at www.dri.ie/demos. There are still registration spaces left for this day. For more information, see www.dri.ie/registration

We have spaces left for Day 1 of our workshop, Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities, which takes place at Croke Park. Registration for Day 2 and Day 3 is now closed. Day 1 includes a fantastic series of panel discussions, and demonstrations from 20 of Ireland's most exciting digital humanities projects.

We are pleased to announce that we were awarded a conference and workshop award from Science Foundation Ireland for our workshop Realising the Opportunites of Digital Humanities. SFI informed us that the review process is very competitive.

As part of the event Realising the Opportunities of Digital Humanities, hands-on skills workshops in Data Modelling, Data Visualisation and Linked data are being offered on Thursday 25th October. Spaces on these workshops are limited, so be sure to register your interest! See the skills workshops page for more details.

We are pleased to announce that DRI was successful in receiving an award from the Ireland Funds. The grant round was funded by The American Ireland fund and this was one of over 1000 applications received.

We are delighted to have our new website up, with more
information on the DRI project, and the institutions and partners involved. Happy browsing!