Spotlight on the digital, http://digitisation.jiscinvolve.org/wp/spotlight-on-the-digital/, is a collaborative project between Jisc, RLUK and SCONUL. It sought to assess the discoverability problem in relation to digitised collections and identify practical solutions to improve their discoverability both at national/above campus level and locally at institutional level. These slides describe a range of above campus or national “solutions” that have been identified by the project and that could support the discoverability of digitised collections.

1. Spotlight on the Digital
Above campus and national solutions –
Recommendations (DRAFT)
The Spotlight on the Digital project was coordinated by Jisc in collaboration with codesigners RLUK and SCONUL as part of the Jisc Co-design programme.
Spotlight sought to assess the discoverability problem in relation to digitised
collections and identify practical solutions that would improve their discoverability
both at national/above campus level and locally at institutional level.
These slides describe a range of above campus or national “solutions” that could
support the discoverability of digitised collections. The project is also producing
separate advice and guidance on improving the discoverability of digitised
collections aimed at institutions and their staff in charge of creating and curating
digital content.
Sero Consulting January 2014

2. Solution 1: Institutional capacity
building
Problem:
Few institutions have the expertise and capacity to develop the skills
and processes required in the digital asset lifecycle; however building institutional
capacity may be preferable in terms of sustainability
Use case:
As a library director with a commitment to our digitised collections, I
want to develop internal capacity in order to ensure ease and continuity of access …
OR as a library stakeholder I want to ensure that future generations of librarians are
prepared at library school to curate digital content
Solution: Assist institutions to develop and embed skills across their teams
relating to the requirements of discovery and access across their target audiences
• Through a programme of facilitated ‘joint action’ projects, involving technical
experts working with creators and curators in institutions to enhance services and
in so doing to develop and embed skills
• Supported by a more conventional training offer
• Linked to library school curricula

3. Solution 2: Foresight group
Problem: The discovery environment is not controlled by universities or the
sector more broadly; change is driven by global and vendor developments
Use case:
As a creator / curator, I need to be aware of changes in web and
vendor discovery environments in order to keep my content discoverable
Solution: Establish a ‘Foresight’ or ‘Observatory’ Group that might collaborate
virtually or meet perhaps 2 or 3 times annually in order to:
• Track key technical and market trends in discovery and related areas
• Be inclusive of the range of scenarios in the sector
• Make recommendations to stakeholders and the community
• Preemptively guide development of related practice, including training and tools
(links to Solutions 1 and 3)
Partners may include such as the British Library Lab, Digital Curation Centre,
institutions such as Cambridge, Sheffield and Southampton, AIM25 (King’s College),
Wikimedia Commons – taking care not to lose focus by drawing in all stakeholders.

4. Solution 3: Software tools
Problem:
Managing the digital asset lifecycle can involve frequent and repetitive
actions over large numbers of file and web pages
Use case: As a creator/curator of large and diverse resources, I need to be able to
maintain content and to review its web presence and impact as efficiently as
possible in order to keep all my content in a highly discoverable position
Solution: Source and/or develop open source tools and services for local and
above campus use, working internationally where possible, for example for
• Rehabilitating assets that are ‘orphaned’ ( i.e. no longer being looked after)
• Describing and surfacing items level content on the web
• Linking to authoritative identifiers (e.g. places, names, subject headings)
• Measuring impact, through usage data and building on existing resources (e.g.
TIDSR toolkit)
May involve working with systems vendors (eg Adlib, Calm), with OS products such
as ePrints and Fedora, and with expert developers (e.g. BL Labs, Cottage Labs, K-Int)
as well as with sector partners)

5. Solution 4: Content promotion
Problem:
The focus of creators and curators and the efforts of institutional PR
teams are often restricted to the development and launch of digitised collections
and it is difficult to sustain ongoing effort through such as PR and social media; there
are also challenges in working with Wikipedia’s editorial expectations and adopting
optimal strategies with other web scale amplifiers.
Use case: As an interested party (researcher, creator, curator, institution,
investor), I want assets to be promoted over the long term in order to stand out
from the ordinary and to build their scholarly reach, research impact, teaching value
and reputational value … OR I want to use high impact web services like Wikipedia to
create powerful links for audiences who will be interested in my content.
Solution: Advocacy and promotion of collections and their distinctive parts
through a range of channels
• Press Releases at key moments (e.g. launch, nth page impression, etc)
• Social media campaigns and persistence
• Positioning through events
• Visibility at popular destinations (e.g. Flickr, Wikipedia)
• Selective Dissemination / awareness ‘push’ services

6. Solution 5: Content licensing
Problem:
Licensing of digitised content, rights clearance and associated
relationship management can demand experience and effort unavailable from the
creators or curators; orphaned collections also present difficulties, perhaps
exacerbated since they were originally digitised
Use case: As a creator/curator, I want to be sure that my digitised content is
licensed as openly and permissively as possible in order to maximize freedom for
reuse and to enable the unexpected … OR I want to ensure rights are appropriately
cleared in order to ensure positive relationships with associated rights owners and
benefactors … OR I want academics to be aware of essential practice
Solution: Undertaking open licensing of collections, especially those orphaned or
currently unwanted, including
• CC licensing for content and metadata
• Rights clearance where required
• Ongoing fit with prevalent licensing models – such as Wikimedia Commons

7. Solution 6: Reliable reference service
Problem: Websites can cease to be discoverable by humans and/or by machines
for a variety of reasons, many of which are capable of remedy given a timely
response, which may not be forthcoming from the creators or curators
Use case: As an interested party (researcher, creator, curator, institution, investor,
I want mechanisms in place in order to check the health of digital assets, to ensure
they do not disappear unnoticed and are consistently visible to web scale discovery
mechanisms over the long term … OR I want the lead curator to be alerted of any
detrimental changes
Solution: Validating that digitised content is discoverable by machines and
therefore by humans
• Establish a ‘collections’ reference list (aka ‘directory’/‘registry’), building on the
2013 Jisc web assessment work
• Ensure resources can be found via search engines, citation and social media
• Generate confidence through regularised automated checking of URLs and other
key features of registered content
• Build reputation as a place to discover well curated collections
• Alert lead parties
• Contribute to community awareness of good practice

8. Solution 7: Aggregation role
Problem: Some creators and curators lack the skills and mechanisms to safeguard
content and to make it discoverable; others are looking for supplementary channels
to promote their content more widely; meanwhile aggregators may not be making
opportunities clear to those responsible for digitised content
Use case: As a creator / curator, I want to maximise
the reach of my resources
whilst minimizing the effort in so doing in order to balance efficiency and
effectiveness … OR I want to use external services in order to overcome my lack of
web presence … OR I want to find a good home for resources I am not resourced to
curate and to protect them against technical or organisational change
Solution: Proactively mobilise trusted aggregators to play a wider and more
proactive role, especially adopting digitised collections.
• Review the role that might be played by current aggregations
National – e.g. Archives Hub, Copac, Culture Grid, MediaHub, VADS
International – e.g. Europeana, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, Vendors
• Assess any requirement for a new aggregation service for collections that have no
existing aggregator interest
• Ensure that digitization projects are covered by the UK Web Archive and consider
the value of setting up UKWA Special Collections