Digital Curation

Sarah Monteiro

Harvey, D. R., & Oliver, G. (2016). Digital curation. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, an imprint of the American Library Association.

Summary:

When we think of curation of material, we can often jump to physical items like books or artifacts. With the digital world how it is now, it is important we all become efficient in digital curation as well.  In Oliver and Harvey’s book we go through the process of curating digital material. This process can be very difficult, but is so important in today’s library times. As a school librarian, I didn’t think it would be necessary, but as our students start to create on a digital medium, I felt it was necessary to explore how I would actually build a collection of their work. The authors start by first defining what digital duration is and why it is important,  the skills and infrastructure needed to properly acquire digital material, and the meaning of the word data. They then go on to explain the Full Lifecycle Actions of digital curation. These are essentially the basic requirements for successful digital curation. After, they explain the essential steps and sequential actions in detail so that you can easily apply them to your own library.

Evaluation:

I thought this was excellent and very informative. Being in a school librarian, I didn't think it would be necessary at first until I was asked to start archiving students digital work. I initially had no idea how I would even begin to do that, but felt very comfortable about it after reading this book. This may not seem like an essential read, but if you find yourself needing to acquire digital material, especially art and videos, this is the book to read.