Digital Preservation Award

Digital Preservation Coalition and Pilgrim Trust announce shortlist
for new Digital Preservation Award

This year for the first time the Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards
will include a new Award sponsored by the Digital Preservation
Coalition (DPC).  The Digital Preservation Award, worth UKP5,000,
will recognise leadership and achievement in the developing field of
digital preservation. Digital Preservation Coalition and Pilgrim
Trust announce shortlist for new Digital Preservation Award.  The
Digital Preservation Award, worth UKP5,000, will recognise
leadership and achievement in the developing field of digital
preservation.

More and more material is being converted to digital format and
increasing quantities of information are available only in digital
form. Whether they are used for the day-to-day business of
government departments, to support academic research, or for the
general public seeking information and entertainment, these
resources represent a significant investment and there is an
increasing dependence on them. The DPC Award aims to encourage and
highlight creative approaches to furthering the digital preservation
agenda. The award is aimed at projects that focus on "born-digital"
resources rather than those using technology for preservation or
conservation purposes and will be awarded to a project which
demonstrates leadership and advancement in the digital preservation
area.

Richard Boulderstone, Director of e-Strategy at the British Library,
who is chairing the Awards Judges, said:  "As more and more of our
information comes to us through purely digital means, never having a
physical form, the work of digital preservation becomes
progressively more important if we are to avoid a huge gap in our
cultural heritage. The short listed projects represent significant
progress in this complex field which still requires considerable
support to yield long term benefits."

Other members of the judging panel for the 2004 Digital Preservation
Award are Sheila Anderson Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service
(AHDS); Kevin Ashley Head of Digital Archives Department, University
of London Computer Centre; David Dawson  Senior ICT Adviser for the
Libraries and Information Society Team of the Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council (MLA); Barry Fox independent journalist and
broadcaster;  Nick Higham formerly BBC Arts and Media correspondent
and now presenter of  BBC News 24's Factfile; Chris Rusbridge
Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow; David
Saunders Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, London.

The winner will be announced on June 22, 2004 by Loyd Grossman at a
presentation ceremony at the British Library.

The shortlist for the 2004 Digital Preservation Award is:

The CAMiLEON Project

    Bringing together expertise from the University of Leeds (funded
    by JISC) and the University of Michigan (funded by NSF), the
    CAMiLEON Project (Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds
    Emulating the Old on the New) developed practical techniques for
    the use of Emulation in the digital preservation world. These
    techniques were put into practice with demonstrator
    developments, in particular a rescue of the BBC Domesday Project
    using emulation.

The Digital Archive

    The National Archives has created the first ever digital archive
    of electronic Government documents to ensure that records of
    modern government are preserved securely for future generations.
    Capable of storing over 100 terabytes of data -equal to 1.5
    billion pages of text - the archive also stores sound and
    graphics files, virtual reality models and even video footage.
    The archive currently holds records from high profile public
    enquiries, departmental web sites, and the records of
    parliamentary committees and royal commissions. The Digital
    Archive is available free of charge in the in public reading
    rooms at Kew and on The National Archives' Network. A large
    scale Internet presentation system is in development, to allow
    access to readers around the world from 2005

JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy

    As a committee of the UK Higher and Further Education Funding
    Councils, the JISC serves some 200 Higher Education Institutions
    and 400 Further Education Institutions across the UK and its
    work therefore has a very wide impact both nationally and
    internationally.The Continuing Access and Digital Preservation
    Strategy for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
    2002-5 sets out the case for investment by the sector in digital
    preservation and the principles and priorities for JISC funded
    activities and external partnerships to be followed over a three
    year period.

Preservation Metadata Extraction Tool

    Preservation metadata is an essential component of a digital
    preservation programme. The National Library of New Zealand has
    commissioned development of a software tool to programmatically
    extract preservation metadata from the headers of a range of
    file formats. The preservation metadata extract tool:

    *   automatically extracts preservation-related metadata from
        digital files; and

    *   outputs that metadata in a standard format (XML) for
        uploading into a preservation metadata repository.

Wellcome Library/JISC Web Archiving Project

    Perceiving the gap in web archiving activity in Britain,
    (although aware of initiatives in the USA, Australia,
    Scandinavia and elsewhere), the Wellcome Library and JISC
    initiated a project to commission a feasibility study into needs
    and opportunities for their respective communities. Recognising
    also that any long-term solution is likely to depend on
    distributed responsibilities, the project has been developed as
    a partnership between Wellcome and JISC, with funding split
    evenly between the two.

The DPC, which was launched in February 2002, is a cross-sectoral
membership organisation of 27 major UK organisations which aims to
ensure that preservation is kept on the policy agenda. Information
about its work can be found at

The Digital Preservation Award is part of the Pilgrim Trust
Conservation Awards. Sponsored by the Pilgrim Trust, the Digital
Preservation Coalition and the Anna Plowden Trust, the Awards are
also supported by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council,
English Heritage, the National Preservation Office, the Institute of
Paper Conservation and the United Kingdom Institute for
Conservation. Full details of shortlisted projects are available at
<URL:http://www.consawards.ukic.org.uk>

The Pilgrim Trust was founded in 1930 by Edward Stephen Harkness of
New York to award grants for some of Great Britain's more urgent
needs and promote the country's future well-being. In 2000, the
Trustees made 137 grant commitments totalling UKP2.9 million, to
projects involved in social welfare, art and learning, preservation,
cataloguing and conservation of records and the repair of historic
churches.  Further information on the Trust is available at
<URL:http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk>.

The 2004 Judging Panel: Sheila Anderson is Director, Arts and
Humanities Data Service (AHDS). The AHDS is a distributed service
and preserves material deposited voluntarily by individuals and
research groups within Higher Education, or as a condition of awards
granted by the Arts and Humanities Research Board.
<URL:http://www.ahds.ac.uk>. Kevin Ashley is Head of Digital
Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre. For the
past ten years, the work of Kevin's group has been primarily
involved in the preservation of digital resources on behalf of other
organisations. Kevin is a Board member of the Digital Preservation
Coalition, a member of the Advisory Council for Erpanet and that of
the UK Archives Hub. Richard Boulderstone (Chair) is Director of
e-Strategy, at the British Library. This role involves the
management and further development of e and IT strategy throughout
the British Library, the implementation of digital media projects
and services, and the delivery of e-business methods and tools.
Major developments to be led by him include the digitisation of many
of the Library's collections as well as the archiving of materials
that are 'born digital'. Prior to this appointment, Richard has held
senior positions in a number of international information providers,
working both in the UK and US. David Dawson is the Senior ICT
Adviser for the Libraries and Information Society Team of the
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). In 1998 David joined
the Museums and Galleries Commission as New Technology Adviser,
before becoming Senior ICT Adviser. He managed the DCMS/MLA IT
Challenge Fund, and is currently working on a range of other
projects and strategic developments

Barry Fox is an independent journalist and broadcaster and winner of
several UK Technology press awards. He has contributed regularly to
New Scientist magazine for thirty years, and to numerous specialist,
hobbyist and trade weeklies and monthlies. Barry is European
Contributing Editor for the US-based Warren group of newsletters,
including Consumer Electronics Daily. He broadcasts on national and
local radio and TV, commenting on technology news and answering
listeners' queries live on air.

Nick Higham presents Factfile on BBC News 24, offering background
information and analysis on the day's major stories. He was formerly
the BBC's arts and media correspondent, reporting for BBC news
programmes on television and radio. He has presented programmes and
documentaries on Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, BBC Two and World Service.
He writes a regular column for Marketing Week magazine and another
for BBC News Online. He frequently chairs industry conferences and
lectures on the media to students and journalists in the UK and
abroad (including Bulgaria and Paraguay).

Chris Rusbridge is Director of Information Services at the
University of Glasgow, which is active in the area of digital
preservation, including being a member of the consortium that
successfully bid for the recently created Digital Curation Centre.
Chris was previously Programme Director of the JISC Electronic
Libraries Programme, where he was closely involved in many digital
preservation activities including Cedars and Camileon.

David Saunders is Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, London.
After post-doctoral research he joined the National Gallery as a
museum scientist. He has been involved in a number of European
Community-supported projects in the area of digital imaging of two
and three-dimensional works of art. He has been an Editor of Studies
in Conservation since 1990, served on the technical committees for
the 1994 and 2000 International Institute for Conservation (IIC)
congresses and, since 2003 has been Director of Publications for
IIC.

For further information about the DPC and the Digital Preservation
Award contact Anna Arthur at Anna Arthur PR on +44 20 7637 2994 or
Emma Wright at Museums, Libraries and Archives Council on +44 20
7273 1459

Maggie Jones
DPC Coordinator
Raymond Burton Library
University of York
Heslington
York Y010 5DD
+44 1904 321 131


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:69
                  Distributed: Wednesday, May 12, 2004
                       Message Id: cdl-17-69-003
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