A recent conference hosted by the University of Edinburgh and funded by the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) had researchers exchanging ideas on the best way to collect and store data across the UK.
The conference - the Edinburgh Repository Fringe - featured archivists and repository developers from across the UK. The event is projected as a grass-roots 'unconference', with group improvisation sessions, soapbox slots, as well as more standard presentations, modelled to some extent on the recent and successful JISC-CRIG unconference.
Software developers and digital librarians are working in partnership to tackle how best to preserve the vast piles of academic data held in hard drives, desk drawers and filing cabinets in the nation. Their efforts are seen to help ensure that hundreds of thousands of articles, databases and research findings - which might otherwise be lost - are made accessible for future generations. Preserving the data and making it easily accessible will mean researchers are less likely to repeat work that has already been done by other academics.
