29 June 2020
The digital archive is still in development, but all Jisc HE, FE and affiliate members will be able to preview an initial proportion of the content that’s being digitised ahead of the full launch later this year.
Paola Marchionni, head of digital resources for teaching, learning and research at Jisc, says:
“The need to digitise library and archival collections has become even more apparent due to the pandemic and the increased demand for online resources. We’re exploring new collaborations with publishers to test if this business model is viable and can be scaled up.”
On completion, the collection will consist of a million pages of documents drawn from the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) and complementary materials from UK libraries and archives. Collections from the universities of Leeds and Liverpool, University College London and Senate House Libraries have already been selected for inclusion and free digitisation following an open call for expression of interest, and more collections from other university libraries and archives will be included over the next few weeks.
This digitisation project comes via an innovative partnership between Jisc, global publisher Wiley, and the participating universities. It uses a new business model for the creation of financially sustainable digital collections which also guarantees free access to all UK institutions.
The ‘British Association for the Advancement of Science: Collections on the history of science 1830-1970’ is freely available to UK institutions through the Jisc licence subscriptions manager. Students, teachers and researchers will be able to engage with important primary source material that will otherwise have been hard to access in physical archives.