Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with Library and Internet Materials (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

Product Information

Abbott tells what every senior researcher knows: that research is not a mechanical, linear process, but a thoughtful and adventurous journey through a nonlinear world. He breaks library research down into seven basic and simultaneous tasks: design, search, scanning/browsing, reading, analyzing, filing, and writing. He moves the reader through the phases of research, from confusion to organization, from vague idea to polished result. He teaches how to evaluate data and prior research; how to follow a trail to elusive treasures; how to organize a project; when to start over; when to ask for help. He shows how an understanding of scholarly values, a commitment to hard work, and the flexibility to change direction combine to enable the researcher to turn a daunting mass of found material into an effective paper or thesis. Please cite as: Abbott, D. (2008). "What is Digital Curation?". DCC Briefing Papers: Introduction to Curation. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. Handle: 1842/3362. Available online: /resources/briefing-papers/introduction-curation The ownership of digital data is particularly complex as creators of both digital objects and analogue originals, databases, metadata, tools for functionality and contextual information can all have rights over the materials, as can the digital curators themselves. Managing rights is a challenging and time-consuming aspect of digital curation.

There is an ever-increasing amount of data being created in digital formats, through the digitisation of existing analogue information and the creation of new 'born-digital' data from the sciences, arts, and humanities sectors. As well as generating new digital data, scientists, researchers, and scholars have begun to rely on digital content created by others. These data are at risk from technological obsolescence and from the inherent fragility of digital media. Digital curation is the management and preservation of digital data over the long-term.Abbott tells what every senior researcher that research is not a mechanical, linear process, but a thoughtful and adventurous journey through a nonlinear world. He breaks library research down into seven basic and simultaneous design, search, scanning/browsing, reading, analyzing, filing, and writing. He moves the reader through the phases of research, from confusion to organization, from vague idea to polished result. He teaches how to evaluate data and prior research; how to follow a trail to elusive treasures; how to organize a project; when to start over; when to ask for help. He shows how an understanding of scholarly values, a commitment to hard work, and the flexibility to change direction combine to enable the researcher to turn a daunting mass of found material into an effective paper or thesis.

On the one hand, Abbott makes a very abstract argument about how library research (and actually all research) works: It is ‘nonlinear’. By this he means that other manuals on how to do research are wrong: You don’t start with a lit review, then take notes, and then write up your paper. Rather, people are always already multitasking — as we spend time in the library or on the Internet we are silently engaging in all of these ‘stages’ of research simultaneously. As these processes cycle over and over, we feed them with material that sparks new ideas. As Abbott puts it, “serendipity is not an unusual, once-in-a-lifetime, even once-in-a-project thing. It is the one constant factor in library research.”But then I slowly realized that over the years, my library of PDFs had basically turned into a noisy intranet of its own and that my reading notes, although well organized, were ramifying out of control. So for my last article — on the influence of population biology on the thought of Jared Diamond — I tried Abbott’s approach of having a separate database for every file. It is clear that e-learning materials, in common with other digital resources, require investment to create and exploit. These materials can be migrated, versioned, updated, reinterpreted or re-visioned to make them applicable to new teaching and learning scenarios. A better understanding is required of the value of preservation and curation methods to leverage that original investment by re-using existing resources in novel ways." Different disciplines use terminology in different ways which can lead to inconsistencies and/or misunderstandings between collaborators on digital curation. Preserving data and protecting it against loss and obsolescence (particularly crucial where the data is non-reproducible or extremely valuable)

Digital curation offers a great number of opportunities for collaboration in data use, and the process itself can benefit from bringing together different expertise, contributors, and sharing the financial burden. However, these activities need to be carefully managed to ensure consistency of approach across different partners.

At the library

Ensuring data is valid as a formal record where appropriate, meaning it can function into the future as legal evidence