The Digital Repository of Ireland believes that digital heritage is at risk of destruction and loss if action is not taken.
The Digital Repository of Ireland believes that digital heritage is at risk of destruction and loss if action is not taken. Digital decay is the gradual decay of digital content – lost data that cannot be accessed because computers no longer understand the legacy formats. The solution is digital preservation – active ongoing data management, including changing formats, standards, and software.
The ‘Decade of Centenaries’ marks a significant period in modern Irish history and provides an important juncture for both national reflection and commemoration. It, as an exercise in public history and national, cultural memory, seeks to (re)engage and educate the general public through events, exhibitions, both online and physical, public lectures, etc., on pivotal and sometimes contentious Irish moments that shape our current understandings of the Irish political, social and economic sphere within the national and international context.
To coincide with this programme of events the Digital Repository of Ireland has opened a call for expressions of interest from custodians of heritage material relating to the Decade of Centenaries who wish to digitally preserve their holdings. We will engage with winning contributors to provide best practice guidance and digital preservation services for these collections. The collection will also be launched at DRI’s Digital Preservation for the Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities (DPASSH) conference in June 2015.
The winning application will receive the services of a digital archivist to undertake tasks that may include: metadata creation and standardisation, assessment of file formats, deposit of collections in DRI for digital preservation, possibly digitisation of collections.
Eligibility criteria:
- Applicants and/or the collection must be based at either; a heritage institution, a research performing organisation, an archive, library, community heritage group or local history group.
- Applications are welcome from DRI consortium members.
- The applicant must have permission or be authorised to sign DRI’s legal agreements on behalf of their organisation. (See DRI terms and conditions).
- The applicant must own copyright in the collection or have permission from the copyright holder to digitise the collection and make it available in the DRI. Please note that the copyright remains with the applicant and is not transferred to DRI. (See DRI terms and conditions).
- Orphan works, that is ‘works and other subject-matter which are protected by copyright or related rights and for which no right-holder is identified or for which the right-holder, even if identified, is not located’, cannot be considered for this call. (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:299:0005:0012:EN:PDF)
- An eligible collection must either be partially or fully digitised and described, and must contribute to the national narrative on the period under consideration (1912-22).
- Collections which can be made publicly accessible in the Repository will be prioritised.
- DRI selection criteria will include a consideration of the volume of the collection and the work required to prepare that collection for deposit. Where a collection in its entirety is deemed too large for this current call we will prepare a proportion of that collection.
- Successful collections must be available for public launch of the DRI in June 2015.
- Successful applicants must be willing and available to work with DRI’s digital archivists April – June 2015. After June 2015 the administration of the collection in DRI will be maintained by the collection owner.
- All applications will be reviewed by the DRI review committee. All decisions are final.
- Applicants must fill in all sections of the application form and remain within word count where applicable.
Please note that digital objects prepared by DRI will be published by the DRI repository and will be accessible online by all public users.
All interested parties must submit their completed application to digitalrepositoryofireland@gmail.com by 31st January 2015. Incomplete or late applications will not be accepted. In your email please quote “Decade of Centenaries Digital Preservation award” in the subject line.
For an application form and a copy of DRI's terms and conditions please email digitalrepositoryofireland@gmail.com
