Themes

Part I: Digital Curation and Preservation - Current Trends and Research.
Program chair: Heather Lea Moulaison, iSchool, University of Missouri, US

Preserving digital content for future access and use represents a major theoretical and practical challenge for digital libraries. Without careful and informed actions, the long-term preservation of digital content cannot be ensured. Digital curation of electronic content requires the development of new kinds of technological expertise and partnerships, and allows for new ways of thinking about stakeholders and access.

As study into the stewardship of digital content moves forward, opportunities and challenges can be identified and assessed. Research initiatives, reflective assessments of practice, and other forms of scholarly investigations can inform future directions in digital curation practice, and ultimately, in access.

Contributions (types described below) are invited covering the following topics:

• Advances in activities or technologies needed for digital curation and digital preservation
• Developments in systems and networks supporting long-term preservation and access
• Standards-based advances in digital curation and preservation
• Cost models and long-term funding considerations
• Risk management in digital curation
• Preservation of and access to oral and other non-text content
• Evaluation of systems, practices, or approaches used in digital curation
• Stakeholders (contributors, users, etc.) and the use and users of preserved digital content
• Implementation of digital initiatives, systems, projects, etc., supporting long-term access to digital content, including international and intercultural initiatives
• Education and training for the long-term management of digital collections
• Discussion about general issues: How are we to understand digital curation in its own right? How are we to respond in digital libraries? What are the opportunities and challenges?