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Projects
Contents
- Repositories / digital preservation
- UCL Special Collections
- Special Collections at UCL SSEES Library
- Biomedical libraries
Repositories / digital preservation
CAVA: a Human Communication Audio-Visual Archive for UCL
Funding was awarded by the JISC for this project, a central aim of which is to establish a digital video repository to support the work of the international human communication research community. This project builds on earlier work undertaken with a UCL Research Challenges grant and is again a cross-disciplinary partnership involving UCL Library Services, two departments and one research centre in the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, and the UK Data Archive. CAVA runs from 1 April 2009 to 31 August 2010.
Collaborative digital assets to support learning, teaching, and research
This project, funded by the University of London Vice-Chancellor's Development Fund from August 2008 until January 2010, builds upon work that has been undertaken on open access institutional repositories under the auspices of SHERPA-LEAP. UCL was involved in Strand 2 - Sustaining, embedding, and extending institutional repositories across the University of London.
MERLIN
UCL Library Services is lead partner in this project which has been funded by the JISC. MERLIN (Metadata Enrichment for Repositories in a London Institutional Network) is a collaboration between UCL Library Services, the SHERPA-LEAP Consortium, the University of London Computing Centre (ULCC), and the University of Nottingham. MERLIN will use off-the-shelf text data-mining techniques to enrich the functionality of the SHERPA-LEAP consortial repository cross-searching service, LASSO. The project will run until 30 September 2010.
UCL Data Audit Framework
Funding was awarded from the JISC for the DAF (Data Audit Framework) project. The project developed a Data Audit Framework to enable universities to carry out an audit of departmental research data collections, awareness, policies and practice for research data curation and preservation. In the longer term, one of the benefits of this process will be to enable other researchers to save money and time by re-using data already collected.
UCL Special Collections
Opening up access to UCL's Mortimer Wheeler Collection
Thanks to the generosity of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, UCL Library Services is opening up access for the first time to the archive of one of the best-known and most influential of British archaeologists of the twentieth century. The grant is enabling the Library to catalogue the archive of Sir (Robert Eric) Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976). This comprises a substantial amount of correspondence, a few notebooks, some photographs, plans and maps, some personal material, and publications dating from 1940s to the 1970s.
Orwell online: digitisation of the George Orwell Archive
UCL Futures 2008/09 has awarded funding for this project to digitise George Orwell's political and domestic diaries, literary and general notebooks and Spanish Civil War papers. The creation of a digitised version of the material will significantly enhance access to this resource for teaching, learning and research as well as promotional activities. In addition to digitisation, the project will include the creation of supporting materials in the form of studypacks and a short podcast, which will be made available via UCL iTunesU comprising interviews with Orwell scholars discussing the importance of the collection to UCL and the wider community.
Turning the spotlight on the treasures of UCL Library Services
UCL Futures 2008/09 has awarded funding for this project to develop a series of podcasts to celebrate the treasures of UCL Library Services' Special Collections. A 10-minute video, followed by a series of 12 shorter audio podcasts, will be created which will serve as an exciting and innovative marketing tool highlighting the vast range, uniqueness and importance of the Library's Special Collections.
Special Collections at UCL SSEES Library
The Library was delighted to have been successful in two project bids during the year, one from UCL Futures 2008/09 and the other from the European Commission.
Opening up access to unique archive holdings in UCL SSEES Library
UCL Futures 2008/09 provided £10,000 towards the cost of appointing an archivist to work on cataloguing the many collections received over the past 10 years. Highlights include two important collections on Albania in the 1920s: one containing material collected throughout his career by Sir Harry Harling Lamb, a diplomat with extensive experience in South Eastern Europe who was appointed British Commissioner on the International Commission of Control in Albania in 1913. This is complemented by the papers of Colonel Frank Giles, mainly relating to his period on the Albanian Frontier Commission in the 1920s. Other important acquisitions now available include papers on Hungary from the Estate of David Mervyn Jones; over 5000 slides taken by Professor Frank Carter while travelling through Eastern Europe; and the papers of Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, a military engineer who was seconded to Great Britain to buy arms for the Russian Army particularly during World War One, given to the Library by his granddaughter, the actress Helen Mirren.
EuropeanaTravel
UCL Library Services is a partner in EuropeanaTravel, which is funded by the European Community under its eContentplus Programme. The project, which began in May 2009, is led by the National Library of Estonia and its overall objective is to digitise over one million items on the theme of travel and tourism from research libraries across Europe. Highlights from the collections of the UCL SSEES Library include nearly 300 printed travel accounts dating from 1557 to 1860, and over 200 historic maps, some dating back to the 16th century. Also included are previously unpublished sketchbooks, photograph albums and diaries from the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans and his wife Margaret, recording their travels in South East Europe.
Biomedical libraries
In 2008-9 NHS London facilitated a competitive bidding process for the allocation of approximately £15m of additional CPPD (Continuous Personal and Professional Development) funding for NHS organisations within London. The Royal Free Hospital Medical Library, UCL Library Services was awarded a total of nearly £20,000 to fund two projects, one on Provision of core library services to non-medical staff and education support for staff in work based learning. A third bid - Developing environments for CPD in support of clinical practice, education and research - was awarded £100,000 via the NHS London Excellence in Education funding stream. Funding was also received from the Wellcome Trust to assess the historical collection at the Joint Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology Library.