icegov2012 proceedings

Tutorial: Digital Curation for Public Sector Professionals
ABSTRACT
This tutorial will expose government professionals to the
foundations, considerations and functions of digital curation.
Governance activities at all levels are increasingly carried out
through digital information. Democratic processes, operational
efficiencies, accountability, compliance with records laws, and
active engagement with citizen all require professionals in the
public sector to serve as responsible stewards of digital
information. Despite the great relevance of digital curation
concepts, skills and innovations to government, public sector
professionals may often be unaware of these connections. This
two-hour ICEGOV tutorial is an effort to address this gap by
exposing public servants to the latest digital curation concepts,
research and tools.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.3.7 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Digital Libraries –
collection, dissemination, systems issues.
General Terms
Professional Development, Digital Curation, Electronic
Governance.
Keywords
Continuing education, digital information, public sector,
government
1. INTRODUCTION
Governance activities at all levels are increasingly carried out
through digital information. Democratic processes, operational
efficiencies, accountability, compliance with records laws, and
active engagement with citizen all require professionals in the
public sector to serve as responsible stewards of digital
information.
Despite the great relevance of digital curation concepts, skills and
innovations to government, our experience has been that public
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ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
Christopher A. Lee and Helen Tibbo
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina
216 Lenoir Drive, CB #3360
1-(919)-962-8366
callee, tibbo@email.unc.edu
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sector professionals are often unaware of these connections. The
ICEGOV tutorial is an effort to address this gap, by briefly
exposing public servants to the latest digital curation literature,
research and tools. It builds on various previous educational
activities, including the ESOPI projects, in which we have
developed a specialized dual-degree curriculum – between the
School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and the School
of Government SOG) – at the University of North Carolina and
associated practical engagement work experiences for publicsector
professionals.
2. DIGITAL CURATION AS AN ARENA
OF PREFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
Within the past few decades, individuals engaged in many
seemingly disparate streams of activity have increasingly come to
recognize that they share a common set of challenges and
opportunities related to caring for digital information. The term
“digital curation” has recently come into use, referring to
“stewardship that provides for the reproducibility and re-use of
authentic digital data and other digital assets” [17]. Digital
curation is not simply the responsibility of professionals working
in collecting institutions (e.g. libraries, archives and museums) but
is instead an endeavor shared by numerous actors with an interest
in stewardship of digital information. In the public sector, this
includes a variety of information professionals, public officials,
agency employees, contractors and private citizens.
While the notion of shared responsibility for government
information certainly is not new, the discussion of curation in this
context is relatively recent. In the 1980s and 1990s, use of the
phrase “data curation” emerged in literature related to the
management of scientific data. Two reports in 2003 brought
further attention to the idea of data curation within the context of
e-science and cyberinfrastructure [9][10].
The phrase “digital curation” has more recent origins. In 2001, the
Digital Preservation Coalition and British National Space Centre
held a seminar called “Digital Curation: Digital Archives,
Libraries and E-science.” The following year, the Joint
Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK issued an
“Invitation to tender: requirements and feasibility study on
preservation of e-prints,” which resulted in the formation of the
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in 2004. In 2006, the Institute for
Museum and Library Services (IMLS) – building on the 21st
Century Librarian program that it began in 2003 – called for grant
proposals to develop educational programs in digital curation and
has funded several programs as a result of this call [14].