CHARTER Project Proposal

Abstract

CHARTER is a small-scale digitisation pilot which will deliver (under JISC heading ‘A’) an openaccess repository (based on Fedora software) populated with a critical mass of 4000 digital images drawn from the unique and rare resources in the Special Collections of the University of Exeter. CHARTER will select, digitise and deposit 2000 new images and will transfer another 2000 existing images (held in the online EVE database facility of the University’s museum, the Bill Douglas Centre) into the repository. This will include the creation of 2000 new metadata records and the creation of a tool for transferring 2000 metadata records from EVE into the repository. The selection theme of the 2000 new images will be popular culture in the longnineteenth- century, 1800-1914, drawn from across the University’s special collections (Bill Douglas Centre, plus Archives & Rare Books). This material has no IPR or copyright issues and has interdisciplinary subject appeal through a wide academic base in the arts and humanities. Academics will participate throughout the project in the process of selection for digitisation and through the creation and testing of an e-learning module. CHARTER will deliver the next phase of Exeter’s strategy to capture and preserve digital artefacts and make them freely available for research and teaching (in a key move from a legacy databases (EVE) to a sustainable open access model).