Issue 1, Volume 6 (2011) of
The International Journal of Digital Curation Now Available

UKOLN has recently published Volume 6, Issue 1 (2011) of The International Journal of Digital Curation on behalf of the Digital Curation Centre. In his editorial, Chief Editor and Director of the DCC Kevin Ashley remarks on the way the 21 contributions to the Journal reflect the maturation process that has occurred across the lifetime of the DCC. While we still read of individual and interesting projects in this field, it is noticeable how much more integrated the activity in digital curation has become.

Kevin steers readers towards one very discernible trend in the way that papers recently published deal with the whole issue of increased scale and the approaches being adopted to address the difficulties that masses of data create. They include, for example, processes of automation and methods of making large volumes of information comprehensible to humans to enable them to make informed decisions about preservation. Consequently there are papers which deal with both visualisation and the use of emulation techniques. In the latter instance there is material on how tools operating inside emulators are proving to be of increasing use as an aid to migration, an interesting development where two approaches that were once seen by some as opposing if not mutually exclusive are now arguably working far closer together. Meanwhile another aspect driven by the whole explosion in data volumes is addressed by work from Denmark on cost models for digital material in cultural heritage activity.

Issue 1, Volume 6 also offers insights in the area of data reuse with work on project members’ attitudes to the use of primary data and data reuse and the way in which opinions in respect of research data may alter even when the data themselves do not. Other material looks into the role of data centres over the years while other work examines the researcher motivations for open science and open data and the benefits they can provide. The Editor expresses his enthusiasm for work spent on collating the exact nature of those benefits, in particular those relating to the citation of data.

Kevin also provides us with pointers towards material in the Issue which deal with institutional and professional change. They describe the way in which the profession and institutions are handling the changes wrought by the changing nature of data creation and collection and how various bodies are coping with the relentless drive towards digital material.

Inevitably in such a wide collection of contributions it is impossible to provide an encompassing theme for all material despite the overwhelming success of the Editor’s analysis of Volume 6, Issue 1. This should not deter readers from investigating those contributions since they offer most interesting insights which have clearly enthused the Editorial Board and which Kevin hopes will provoke as much comment as those contributions marked as representing a more discernible theme. Like him, we invite readers to send all and any comments on the Issue’s material to ijdc@ukoln.ac.uk and so enliven the debate that is necessary so that "we refine and test the ideas we are collectively exploring in digital curation."