Talk given during UCL Digital Humanities visit, 3 May 2013.

1. UCL Digital Humanities visit
How will history remember you…?
Wellcome Library, May 2013
Dave Thompson
Digital Curator, Wellcome Library

2. What’s a digital curator…?
1. If you ever find out please let me know. I’m supposed
to be preserving digital stuff…
2. Day to day responsibility for 2 systems; #Goobi &
Safety Deposit Box #sdb – for responsibility read
‘Fixing’.
3. Work with archivists in the acquisition & long term
management of born digital stuff, i.e. problem solving.
4. Work with digitisation team on system
requirements/functionality & process management,
i.e. making systems do stuff better.

3. So, how do I spend my day…?
1. Planning. Planning. Planning. Meetings. Meetings.
Meetings.
2. Project management. Deadlines. Budgets.
Objectives. Reporting. Planning. Meetings.
3. Process management, how we do stuff, how can we
do it better.
4. Tiny, tiny, tiny part of my time spent on actually
managing data.

5. Why do we need to preserve data…?
1. Technical reasons, e.g. obsolescence, but also social
& economic reasons.
2. Formats, media, hardware, software eventually
becomes obsolete. Data remains an economic good.
3. Personal papers provide a unique insight.
4. Some data can’t be re-created at any cost, e.g.
personal diaries or geophysical data.

6. So, I can
think of four
lessons, in no
particular
order…

7. 1. Nothing without imagination
1. The power of preservation can only be revealed if we
can imagine the uses the data can be put to.
2. Data management is not an exercise in technology for
its own sake.
3. There is nothing that cannot be achieved, but it takes
more than computers & software.
4. Successful long term data management is about
engaging with creators & consumers, with the data &
with the future.

8. 2. It’s not my job…
1. My role is to pick up where creators left off. At least for
born digital material.
2. I can only work with what I’m given.
3. Responsibility for creating data that has a sustainable
future lies with creators.
4. The future of the data lies in your hands. Help me out.

9. 3. It is a quest for world domination
1. The world is now dominated by data.
2. Data creators need to understand the impact of
decisions they make in creating data.
3. Long term vision & data management planning are
essential if a data based resource is to have benefits.
4. Understanding how to manage data over time is the
new powerbase. Grasp it.

10. 4. Its not a technical problem...
1. Digital preservation is not a technical problem. Many
technical issues already have solutions; it’s a social
problem.
2. Need to engage with data creators, get them to build
sustainable data sets. Need is for shared
responsibility.
3. The challenge is to move digital data into the future
not just intact but in context & retaining its significance
as research material.
4. This makes it a social problem.

11. So my lessons are that…
1. Long term management of data is an opportunity to be
creative & imaginative, but also to be challenged.
2. Data creators must take more responsibility in
creating sustainable data sets.
3. To understand the management of data is to assume
significant power.
4. The long term management of data is a social
problem we all share.

12. ‘Doesn't matter if you are
Hitler, Nero or Napoleon,
because archivists,
librarians and historians will
have the final word on your
life.’
Twitter, HistoryNeedsYou (RT by DavidUnderdown 20
Jan 2013.)

13. Thank you
Questions now, questions later…?
Dave Thompson
Digital Curator
Wellcome Library
d.thompson@wellcome.ac.uk