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Library Services

Centre for Digital Collections

Centre for Digital Collections
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Library Services has been granted funding through the Research Capital Infrastructure Fund to establish the Centre for Digital Collections.  The centre will act as a hub for the digitisation of archives and special collections, as well as the transfer of born digital material, and the preservation of digital records.  More than purely a place to create and store digital material, the centre will then act as research, learning and engagement space, both virtually and physically, providing opportunities to explore the collections, engage with them in different ways, and create new objects inspired by the originals.   

The Centre will be led and managed by Archives and Special Collections, working in collaboration with researchers across the university, with a particular focus in the Humanities, as well as the Centre for Arts, Culture and Creative Collaboration, and the Civic Engagement Team.  

Timescale: June 2024 – December 2025 

 Deliverables:  

  • Digitisation and digital transfer studio – physical, planned for the Mile End Library which will house two state of the art digitisation units, able to handle a range of items from 2D documents to 3D objects. 
  • Digital Asset Management System for the description, discovery and access to/of collections, and the curation of virtual exhibitions.  The system will provide tools to engage directly with materials, including streaming video content, rotating and zooming on 3D objects, and flipping and zooming pages in multi-page documents. 
  • Preservation capability – to manage the long-term storage and access to digital collections and ensure that file formats are monitored over time. 
  • New role of Digital Asset Specialist – who will support digitisation and ingest projects, as well as providing training and guidance on the use of equipment, current advice on good file formats for preservation work. 
  • Virtual exhibition capability including curation and captioning of exhibits, linking out and embedded media, options to engage in a more in-depth way with material. 
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