Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Digital Curation (definition)

Digital curation is not a term that is broadly used yet. What is it? (emphasis added)
Digital curation, broadly interpreted, is about maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use. (DCC)

The term digital curation is...the actions needed to maintain digital research data and other digital materials over their entire life-cycle and over time for current and future generations of users. (DCC)

... it is the active management and appraisal of digital information over its entire life cycle. (Pennock)


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4 comments:

Jill Hurst-Wahl said...

Matt left a comment that said:

"Digital curation, or a digital curator, sounds so similar to what an electronic records archivists does that I do not see any difference. I've asked about this before and nobody has been able to give me a clear answer."

Matt, I suspect that the difference, if you want to call it that, is "digital curation" is a broader term than "electronic records management". It is not just about records, but about all types of digital assets.

In addition, ERM may have come out of the records management mode of thinking, while digital curation may have emerged from digital libraries, digitization and digital preservation.

The term digital curation has been more widely used outside of the U.S. and is now being used more widely within the U.S.

BTW I think I oopsed when I moderated your comment, which is why isn't not displaying. My apologies for that. (Perhaps I need another cup of coffee?!)

Paco Fernández said...

Hi Jill.
And what is the difference between digital curation and digital preservation?

Jill Hurst-Wahl said...

Paco, digital curation would include digital preservation because digital curation is the active management of the assets over their life-cycle.

records management said...

It would seem to me that mere record management without the use of a curator is in fact not utilizing the full benefits of the records. Thank you for the definition.