Digital Curation and other stuff

I have not been able to write on my blog for a while now. Assignments and presentations are due and juggling between work, family and studies is definitely a challenge. However, I feel more positive about my studies and I suppose it takes time to get into  the academic mode.

We had a break from class for one week and we started off the second term with a  guest speaker on Digital Curation. Much to our surprise it was our very own Mrs. Witbooi who came to share with us her knowledge on digital curation given that she participated in a course offered by UCT some time ago. I had a limited understanding of the topic and found the presentation to be very informative.

For me, the word curation brings to mind visions of archives and museums. I thought it was the digitization of older materials which are not electronically available. I was partly wrong. Digital curation involves the  active long-term management of digital material. It is a relatively new term which incorporates existing concepts such as data curation and  digital transformation and is still an evolving discipline.

The current definition of the Digital Curation Centre for its activity is:
“Digital curation, broadly interpreted, is about maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use.” The benefits of digital curation include: persistant access to reliable data, improved quality of data itself, preserving and protecting  data against loss or obsolescence, etc.

We were introduced to the digital curation life cycle which provides an overview of the stages required for successful curation and preservation and ultimately use thereof.

Manjula Patel, 2008 Presentation

 

Follow @digitalcuration on Twitter

Because digital curation is a relatively new concept, it provides information professionals with an opportunity to learn new skills and competencies. I was once again amazed at how much the library profession has to offer and how many opportunities there are for the next generation of librarians.

Tonight's lecture is on Altmetrics by a guest speaker. Looking forward to learning something new. 

Despite the workload, due dates, work and family responsibilities I am really enjoying the course and I am learning so much about so many different topics.