University of Nottingham partners with Preservica to promote open discovery of unique digital collections

Preservica, the market leader in cloud-hosted active digital preservation, has been selected by the University of Nottingham Libraries to safeguard and aid the open discovery of its unique and diverse range of academic, business and cultural digital collections.

The University Library has been actively collecting manuscript and archive material for more than seventy years and has created a unique archive for staff, students and members of the public, containing more than three million records across 700 archive collections.

The Manuscripts and Special Collections department now holds nationally designated collections. Items of note include:

• Papers of leading Nottinghamshire families and their estates
• Records of local businesses and organisations, including those of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham
• Papers of political, diplomatic, literary, scientific and academic figures, including D.H. Lawrence
• Historical records of the University and its predecessor, University College Nottingham
• Special collections of published works

The Libraries department also provides a comprehensive range of services to staff and students, including access to one million print books and journals; 300,000 electronic books, 20,000 eJournals, and a full range of learning technologies.

The team at Nottingham was in urgent need of a workable digital preservation solution to ensure that it could continue to safeguard the University’s digital information assets; ensure their authenticity and integrity and maintain their usability over time.

“Preservica’s open APIs will enable digital preservation to be integrated with our other library systems.” commented Keeper of Manuscripts and Special Collections, Mark Dorrington.“This flexibility and interoperability allows us to continue to build a digital environment which promotes open discovery and collaboration”

Integrating with the Libraries’ existing catalogue and library management platforms was a key requirement for the project. This includes integration with Alma and Primo, and an ‘out-of-the-box’ catalogue integration that will enable a synchronized view between Preservica and the University’s archive catalogue, Axiell Calm.

The University’s Manuscripts and Special Collections department will initially use Preservica to tackle a backlog of more than 70,000 digitised objects and born digital records which require urgent digital preservation. This will expand to active collection and preservation of the digital records from across the university and its communities.

Preservica CEO, Mike Quinn added, “We’re looking forward to working with University of Nottingham Libraries and their diverse collections, and welcome them to our growing community of academic libraries around the globe. With many of the University’s collections regularly being added to, having a flexible digital preservation solution will ensure they can provide access today for current research interests, as well as protect unique digital materials for the future.”

About University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a research-intensive university with a proud heritage, consistently ranked among the world's top 100. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our 44,000 students - Nottingham was named both Sports and International University of the Year in the 2019 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, was awarded gold in the TEF 2017 and features in the top 25 of all three major UK rankings.

We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement. We are ranked eighth for research power in the UK according to REF 2014. We have six beacons of research excellence helping to transform lives and change the world; we are also a major employer, proud of our Athena SWAN silver award, and a key industry partner- locally and globally.

About Preservica

Preservica is changing the way organisations around the world protect and future-proof critical long-term digital information. Available in the cloud (SaaS) or on premise, our award-winning active digital preservation software has been designed from the ground-up to tackle the unique challenges of ensuring digital information remains accessible and trustworthy over decades.

It’s a proven solution that's trusted by a growing number of businesses, archives, libraries, museums and government organisations around the world - including University of Manchester, Yale University, Dartmouth University, HSBC, The Museum of Modern Art, The National Library of Australia, the World Bank, Amnesty International, and the European Commission - to name a few.

Visit: www.preservica.com Twitter: @preservica

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