futureArch
The futureArch project (2008-11) aims to transform the Bodleian Library's capacity to manage its archives and manuscripts to meet the requirements of the present and future research community.
The Library’s collections of archives and manuscripts are increasingly hybrid, comprising both traditional paper and newer audio-visual and digital formats. The focus of the futureArch project is to develop a system for the lifecycle management of hybrid archival collections, ensuring that the Library continues to develop, process and make available its rich and unique resources for the benefit of scholars now and in the future.
Thanks
The Bodleian Library is grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its generous support of this project.
Project objectives
To realise our vision we will be making adjustments, large and small, to our curatorial activities and services in the following areas:
Policy
The project will deliver the financial, organisational, strategic and structural changes needed in order to establish core services (including Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts or BEAM) and develop these further.
Cultural change
The project aims to deliver cultural change by developing a framework that will include new policies, processes, systems and training designed to help curators accustomed to working with traditional archives apply their skills to hybrid collections containing a mixture of digital and traditional formats. Ultimately, curators will be able to select, accession, access, appraise and catalogue hybrid archives and support researchers in their use, irrespective of format.Infrastructure and systems
The framework will develop standard capture, preservation and dissemination processes for born-digital materials through the establishment of a new service called Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts (BEAM). This will be thoroughly integrated with the Library's curatorial process for archives and manuscripts, ensuring parity of treatment for materials in traditional and more modern digital forms.
BEAM will act as the Library's trusted digital repository service for digital archive materials and its development will be a significant component of the futureArch project. It will provide curators with the ‘high-level’ tools they need to do their work, while taking care of the more specialist aspects of digital curation. In addition to sitting within the Library's framework for hybrid archives, the new service will also be integrated into the framework of Oxford's digital repositories. It will share skills, services and technologies with repositories within the remit of the Bodleian Libraries, such as the Oxford Digital Library and the Oxford University Research Archive.
Digital collections
The project will address the backlog of born-digital material in existing collections, bringing these into a managed environment and making collections available to researchers as appropriate. It will also seek out new hybrid archives to further enrich the Library’s holdings and develop existing collections which form the subject of ongoing deposit agreements.
Deliver improvements to reader services
The project will provide systems for reader access to archives in digital form; integrate finding aids for digital and non-digital collections; and expose metadata about appropriate collections to some web 2.0 services.