Digital Curation at

the Wellcome
Library: The Story So
Far
• The Wellcome Library is one of the world's major
resources for the study of medical history, 750,000
books, 250,000 pictures

• Archival collections date from antiquity to the

present day

• First (known) digital accession received in

November 2004
 Digital Curation in
Action
• 2005-Present
• Current Library Strategy
acknowledges the
importance of digital
material for the future of the
Library
• However…funding
patterns do not necessarily
reflect this!
Digital Preservation System
• Needed a system able to meet
the diverse needs of Archivists,
Systems Librarians and IT staff
• Lengthy procurement exercise
only identified one realistic
possibility
• Should we buy an imperfect
system today or wait and see if
something better comes onto
the market tomorrow???
 Current Activities
• Audit of existing digital holdings
• Cataloguing Digital material
• Educating staff and depositors
• Writing and refining procedures as we go…
Existing Digital Holdings
 Cataloguing Digital
Material
• Traditional archival cataloguing methods still relevant
• Necessary to adopt a broader approach
• Utilise relationships with donors – they can provide
valuable information
• Well educated donors can save you a lot of work!
Judith Langfield’s Diary
Judith Langfield’s Diary
Action on Smoking and
Health
• Depositing material since
1991
• Emails and other
documents printed out
since c.1999
• 2010 – hybrid accession
containing materials
relating to the “Smoke
Free” campaign 2003-2008
 Wellcome Trust Sanger
Institute
• November 2008, visited
Sanger to give a
presentation about digital
preservation and ask for
volunteers
• Senior Investigator Alex
Bateman agreed to give us
material
 Educating Donors
•Traditionally archives have been
transferred at the end of their
lifecycle.
• Regular transfers of current
material replace “widow’s
deposit”
• Digital material not unique –
donors can continue to access
material that has been archived
 Future Plans
• Ultimate aim is to create a hybrid library: paper,
born-digital and digitised material together in one
collection
•Target key individuals working in medicine and the
allied sciences
• Continue to work collaboratively with other
organisations. The issue of digital preservation is to
big to be solved by one organisation
 Questions?
Natalie Walters, Wellcome Library
n.walters@wellcome.ac.uk

Wellcome Library Digital Curation pages:

http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node288.html

Libraries@Cambridge, 8th January 2010