Digital Preservation /10/2015slide 6 Support and Enabling Project - £250k SPRUCE Project (University of Leeds / BL / OPF / DPC / LSE) November 2011 – October 2013 To articulate the Business Case for Preservation by engaging with the community and building an evidence base through support and enabling actions that help a range of institutions tackle real-world preservation challenges. (£370k in total) JISC Digital Infrastructure 12/11 Call Active Case Studies - £75k (4 months) Carcanet Press Manchester (Uni) Digital Directorate Institute of Ed Future Proofing ULCC POPEInstitute of Ed POPSUni of C Lancs (£105k in total) Enhancing Capability - £100k (9 months) DataSafe Bristol (Uni) DICELSE SHARDULCC PrePAReCambridge (Uni) (£230k in total) Digital Preservation Expert Group

Why do we need to demonstrate the business case for preservation?

“We need more case studies” “We need more examples of lost information” “We need to know what preservation costs” “We need good ways of explaining why preservation is important”

I’m sorry … I don’t understand. Why are we spending so much money on keeping all this stuff?

Answers that really deliver …? It’s a leap of faith. This material might come in very handy at some point … This data might be really crucial for future research … If we get rid of this and someone sues us, we could be in real trouble … If we know what we’ve done in the past, it’ll help us plan the future … Looking after these important resources really boosts our reputation …

Answers that REALLY deliver “… This unique insight into the circumstances around the creation of this important poem is only possible because of the groundbreaking work done by the John Rylands University Library to preserve correspondence between the poet and her publisher” … boost reputation “ … I’ve been looking back through Geoff’s archive and you know what, I really understand now why we ended up in that difficult situation back in It’s left a bad taste in certain people’s mouths - but it wasn’t our fault!” … mitigate PR disaster “ … Once you know what to do, it’s really easy isn’t it! We don’t have to buy another server now. We can spend the money on another scanner and really tackle the backlog” … measurable efficiency “ … In recognition of the careful and conscientious preservation of this unique archive of educational documentation a further award will be granted to enhance and extend their activities”… release of funding “Our output of published research has almost doubled in the last few years! Who would have thought that the application of preservation principles would have such an effect?” … good practice promotes productivity

And how do we gather these stories? By engaging with the complexity of digital preservation

Other work just starting … Enhancing the Sustainability of Digital Collections – 8 projects investigating and measuring how effectively action can be taken to increase the prospects of sustainability for specified digital resources. Analytical Access to Domain Dark Archive (AADDA) - Institute of Historical Research (University of London) Big Data (Big Data) - Oxford Internet Institute Impact of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS Impact) - University of York Developing a Sustainability Index Using British History Online (ISURV) - Institute of Historical Research (University of London) Enhancing the Sustainability of the Linnean Online Collections (Linnean Project) - University of London Sustainability Development for a Crowd-Sourced Learning Framework - a Geospatial Case Study (SDCLF) - University of Nottingham Sustaining the EEBO-TCP Corpus in Transition (SECT) - Bodleian Library University of Oxford Semantic Technologies Enhancing the Lifecyle of Learning Resources (STELLAR) - Open University