Making Digital Documents Survive: a workshop
          University of Glasgow, Monday 15 May

This workshop is one of a series which has been run by
the Effective Records Management project, funded by the
JISC under its Technology Applications Programme.


The Problem

A large proportion of the information resource of HEIs is
now as a matter of course created, stored, distributed
and used in digital formats. Some of this information
constitutes records of the institutions, that is, it acts
as evidence of the institution's activities, and various
agencies have the right to request that this evidence is
produced at some point in the future.

The durability of paper as a medium has meant that, if
certain basic safeguards are observed, we have been able
to guarantee access to paper records for relatively long
periods of time. We prepare and handle information in
digital form because this allows us to make more flexible
use of it, but can we ensure that information held in
this form will survive for the future?

The digital environment has been characterised by an
extraordinary rate of change, and we can only assume that
this will continue for the foreseeable future. File
formats, storage devices, even display devices will come
and go. In the face of such volatility, what can we do in
order to improve the chances that our records will
survive those changes?

Paper documents require some special treatment beyond
that of simply preserving the medium if they are to be
recognised as records in the future. How do these
criteria for legal "admissibility" affect digital
records?

And if there is work to be done in this area, who is to
do it? Can we rely on our IT specialists to retrieve our
digital records when they are required in the future?


The Workshop

The objective of this one-day workshop is to identify
some of the challenges concerned with ensuring that
digital records survive and to explore real, practical
ways of meeting those challenges.


The Presenters

Are practitioners in academic and related fields, they
all have considerable experience of the challenges of
records management across different media.

Kevin Ashley, Project Manager, UK National Digital
Archive of Datasets (NDAD), University of London Computer
Centre

 NDAD contains archived digital data from UK government
departments and agencies. The system has been available
since March 1998 and provides open access to the
catalogues of all its holdings, and free access to open
datasets following a simple registration process. The
information in this archive is primarily UK government
data that has been prepared or stored on computer, along
with associated documents which are scanned and stored as
both image and text files.

Monica Scott, Archivist, British Council

Monica will discuss the following questions:-  What are
electronic records? What makes them different from other
types of information? What are the legal considerations?
How and when do we "capture" electronic documents? How
much control should document creators have? Is a "file"-
based structure required?  What are the requirements for
access and security? How do we ensure that
retention/disposal/preservation practices for electronic
documents accord with those for paper records?

Nancy Elkington, Research Libraries Group

The Research Libraries Group, which has its headquarters
in Mountain View, California, is a not-for-profit
membership corporation of over 160 universities, national
libraries, archives, historical societies, and other
institutions. In addition to a range of collaborative
activities that address members' shared goals, RLG
develops and operates databases and software to serve the
information needs of member and non-member institutions
and individuals around the world.

In addition there will be more general discussion of
digital preservation issues, in groups lead by members of
the Effective Records Management team and a summing up
session lead by Michael Moss of the University of
Glasgow.


Venue

Senate Room, Gilbert Scott Building, University of
Glasgow


Cost

Full time students £20
HEI staff £35
Other organisations £50

More detail and an application form may be found at:-

http://www.gla.ac.uk/InfoStrat/ERM/Workshops/

To reserve a place, please either complete the web form
or email Mrs Marjorie Espiner
([log in to unmask]) with your contact /
invoice details.  If you have any queries please contact
Mrs. Espiner at Glasgow University Archives 0141 330
4543.



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