31 January 2015: Deadline for Digital Repository of Ireland ‘Decade of Centenaries’ digital preservation award

To coincide with the programme of events for the ‘Decade of Centenaries’, in December 2014 the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) opened a call for expressions of interest from custodians of heritage material relating to the Decade of Centenaries who wish to digitally preserve their holdings. The winning collection will also be launched at DRI’s Digital Preservation for the Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities (DPASSH) conference in June 2015. The winning application will receive the services of a digital archivist to undertake tasks that may include: metadata creation and standardisation, assessment of file formats, deposit of collections in DRI for digital preservation, possibly digitisation of collections.

The eligibility criteria were:

• Applicants and/or the collection must be based at either; a heritage institution, a research performing organisation, an archive, library, community heritage group or local history group.
• Applications are welcome from DRI consortium members.
• The applicant must have permission or be authorised to sign DRI’s legal agreements on behalf of their organisation. (See DRI terms and conditions).
• The applicant must own copyright in the collection or have permission from the copyright holder to digitise the collection and make it available in the DRI. Please note that the copyright remains with the applicant and is not transferred to DRI. (See DRI terms and conditions).
• Orphan works, that is ‘works and other subject-matter which are protected by copyright or related rights and for which no right-holder is identified or for which the right-holder, even if identified, is not located’, cannot be considered for this call.
• An eligible collection must either be partially or fully digitised and described, and must contribute to the national narrative on the period under consideration (1912-22).
• Collections which can be made publicly accessible in the Repository will be prioritised.
• DRI selection criteria will include a consideration of the volume of the collection and the work required to prepare that collection for deposit. Where a collection in its entirety is deemed too large for this current call we will prepare a proportion of that collection.
• Successful collections must be available for public launch of the DRI in June 2015.
• Successful applicants must be willing and available to work with DRI’s digital archivists April – June 2015. After June 2015 the administration of the collection in DRI will be maintained by the collection owner.
• All applications will be reviewed by the DRI review committee. All decisions are final.
• Applicants must fill in all sections of the application form and remain within word count where applicable.

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