Consultation to Develop Digital Preservation Program

FAIN: PG-50082-07

Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3800)
Steve Dalton (Project Director: May 2006 to August 2008)

Consultation to devise a preservation program for the library's existing and future digital collections. The library houses special and archival collections related to Irish and British studies, including manuscripts by literary figures such as William Butler Yeats, Hilaire Belloc, and Graham Greene, as well as works published by or about the Jesuits, and materials that document Catholic liturgical movements in America.

The Boston College (BC) libraries will embark on a comprehensive strategic planning initiative early in 2007. Ongoing digitization of BC's significant humanities collections, primarily those in the John J. Burns Library, will undoubtedly be an important goal within that new strategic plan. As more of BC's humanities collections are made available digitally, the responsibility to preserve those digital assets will grow proportionately. In response, the BC libraries intend to adopt a centralized digital preservation program model on campus and now seek expert assistance in defining critical next steps toward development and implementation. This Preservation Assistance Grant will be used to contract with consultant Dr. Paul Conway, a renowned expert on digital preservation issues, who will provide the BC libraries with the assistance required. The proposed consultation will better equip BC's libraries to preserve and protect their humanities collections in digital form.