Towards a framework for education and training of digital curators

Zinaida Manžuch

Institute of Library and Information Science, Vilnius University

LIDA 2008, Dubrovnik, 4 June

Aims and outline

Urgent demand for educating digital curators Aim: to determine the main priorities for education and

training of digital curators (DC) Topics discussed:

– Digital curation concept & current landscape– Structure and teaching priorities in DC education– Conceptual model of DC education and training

Based on:– DigitalPreservationEurope findings (see http://

www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu/) – Experience in LIS Education in Europe

Digital curation concept

Digital curation – extending life-cycle of digital documents – born-digital and digitised

Changes:– Dependency on technology obsolescence, complex

and dynamic structure of digital documents– Covers all cycle of resource management activities

(curation)– Preservation of accessibility

Digital curation landscape

Structuring the content of DC education & training

The need for unifying principle: danger of fragmentation

Proper mix of social, cultural, organizational and technological aspects of DC

Integration of DC into broader context of archival, library and museum (ALM) activities

Interchange of knowledge in ALM sector

Some pre-requisites for DC structuring priorities

The scope of current DC training events17

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Topics

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Digital entities

Digital preservation life-cycle

Digital preservation ingeneral

Digital repositories

Organizational issues

Teaching priorities for DC education and training

Learning objectives - educating professional capable:– to work in fluid environments – to cope with ambiguous situations

New vision for competency

Balance between research and practice

Conceptual model of DC education & training

Higher Education

Vocational training

Conceptual knowledge

Operational knowledge

Technical skills

Conclusions

Digital curators – educators and consultants of diverse communities

DC should rely on knowledge base of archivistics, LIS and museology

DC is a reflective professionalDC education provides a proper mix of “know

how” and “know why” DC is oriented to problem-based learning

Thank you for attention!

Zinaida Manžuch

zinaida.manzuch@mb.vu.lt

Institute of Library and Information Science

Faculty of Communication

Vilnius University