VALA2024 Concurrent Session 05 Mills

Preservation Starts with Creation: A Framework for University Libraries to Integrate Digital Curation in Scholarly Literacies

VALA2024 CONCURRENT SESSION 05

Wednesday 10 July 2024, 12.05-12.35pm

Dr Roger Mills

  • Researcher and Digital Preservation Consultant
  • Datacom Information Technologies

Presentation

Abstract

University libraries are at the forefront of teaching scholarly literacies; academic writing, referencing, research data management (RDM), and the use of citation software. This tuition rarely extends to digital curation, despite research librarians’ expertise in curation activities, such as metadata creation, appraisal, and collections retention and disposition. This paper outlines a lifecycle framework for university libraries to integrate digital curation practices into RDM training, and broader scholarly literacies. It presents a critical examination of the field and describes iterative steps to embed digital curation theory and practices into Higher Degree Research (HDR) and Early Career Research (ECR) scholarship. It provides the necessary actions and tools for university libraries to integrate digital curation into their training services and to prepare students and researchers for future professional academic work.

Biography

Dr. Roger Mills is an independent researcher and Digital Preservation Consultant for Datacom Information Technologies. He works with universities, and local and state governments, to implement systems and strategies for long-term access to, and use of, digital archives and collections. Roger’s background in Digital Humanities research has led to his interest in concepts of provenance, authorship, and curation of bitstreams generated online from geographically dispersed collaboration. His published research traverses these areas, with a focus on intercultural engagement in distributed creative online interaction. Roger has since moved into the private sector to develop his passion for translating cultural knowledge and meaning making in a digital space, and to secure, maintain, and share it with the present, and future generations.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International.