What is the AHDS?
The Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) is a nationally funded service aiding the discovery, creation and preservation of digital resources in and for research, teaching and learning in the arts and humanities. The AHDS aims to serve the arts and humanities education community by:
• Supplying advice and guidance in the creation of digital resources to quality standards that ensure their suitability for informed use in research and researchled teaching, and their long-term viability
• Providing rich, deep, access to the intellectual content of arts and humanities digital resources created by or for Higher and Further Education
• Preserving arts and humanities digital resources created by Higher Education.
The creation of the AHDS in 1996 was based on a Feasibility Study and Report written by Lou Burnard and Harold Short and initially funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). (1) This Feasibility Study was in part a response to the increasing fears for the sustainability and preservation of publiclyfunded electronic resources. This report recommended the creation of a distributed service named the Arts and Humanities Data Service expanding on existing provision in this area. The organisational structure that they proposed consisted of a Management Committee (to act as a liaison between the Service and its funders), an Executive (to manage the Service and overall policy), and a number of distributed subject centres responsible for the specialised services the AHDS would offer. This distributed structure was novel and a forward-looking solution now common in many similar subject-based services.
After a long period of yearly funding as a project by the JISC, in 2003 the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now Council) agreed to co-fund the AHDS with the JISC with each funder contributing 50% over a longer period. Although the AHDS has evolved over the years its overall structure and mission still closely resembles that set out in the initial Feasibility Study by Burnard and Short.
Structure of the AHDS
The AHDS today comprises six distributed but interrelated and cooperating centres which provide an integrated service for arts and humanities research and teaching for the creation, management, preservation and use of digital resources. (2) These six elements are:
AHDS Executive The AHDS Executive, based at King’s College London, is responsible for the overall direction and management of the AHDS. It undertakes the strategic planning, fi nancial organisation, policy creation and maintenance, and the running of a shared technical infrastructure for preservation and dissemination. The AHDS Executive works closely with those at the distributed Centres to coordinate all aspects of the AHDS. (See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/)
AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics The AHDS subject centre that serves the disciplines of English language and literature in particular is the AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics. This is hosted at the Oxford Text Archive (OTA) at the University of Oxford. The OTA was founded in 1976, and after 30 years of collecting digital resources the OTA collection is wide and varied. It collects, documents, curates and promotes the use of digital resources to support research and teaching within the disciplines of literature, languages, and linguistics. It also provides advice and support to digital data creators and users. Its holdings include all types of resources related to its subject areas, such as digital versions of literary works, linguistic corpora, collections of language data and resources related to research and teaching. Although primarily an archive of electronic textual data, in recent years its collection has incorporated multimedia resources. As with a number of the other subject centres, only those resources which have been collected after the creation of the AHDS are archived centrally by the AHDS Executive. All older deposits are preserved at the OTA, while most recent deposits are preserved both with the OTA and the AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics. One of the lessons learnt over the last thirty years of archiving resources is that the adoption of standardised formats is benefi cial to both resource creators and those who wish to use them. Although for textual resources the OTA now strongly recommends the use of the most recent guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), which is a recognised international standard for textual materials in the arts and humanities, and which the OTA has assisted in developing, many of its earlier resources pre-date such standards and may contain unanticipated or individualistic forms of markup. (3)
AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics is happy to advise in the use and re-purposing of these resources for research and teaching. AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics participates in many subject-based organisations related to English language and literature. These include not only standards-creating bodies such as the TEI and the Open Language Archives Community, but also subject specifi c organisations which encourage good practice in their particular discipline such as the Poetics and Linguistics Association, the British Association of Applied Linguistics, or those concerned with particular temporal span, such as Digital Medievalist and Digital Classicist. (4) AHDS Literature, Languages, and Linguistics would be interested in hearing of any conferences, seminars, or workshops in the areas of literature, languages or linguistics where there may be those who would benefit from further advice or consultation concerning the creation of digital resources. Please do email info@litlangling.ahds.ac.uk for further information or advice or go to http://www.ahds.ac.uk/litlangling/
AHDS Performing Arts AHDS Performing Arts, based at the University of Glasgow, is hosted by Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute. It acquires, documents, maintains and promotes the use of digital resources in support of research and teaching across the very broad fi eld of the performing arts: music, film, broadcast arts, theatre, dance. It is intended for performing arts researchers, teachers and students in UK Higher Education. AHDS Performing Arts has an interest in all types of resources related to the performing arts from digital versions of works themselves, representations or constituents of the works, materials about the performing arts and catalogue data. See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/
AHDS History AHDS History, based at the University of Essex, is hosted by the UK Data Archive. It undertakes to provide longterm preservation for digital resources which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching. As with the other centres it offers a range of services including providing advice and training about creating, describing, using and preserving historical digital resources; collecting and curating historical digital resources; providing access to a wide-ranging collection of historical digital resources; establishing thematic special collections, and enriching and enhancing selected data collections; and promoting standards in the creation, description, use and preservation of historical digital resources. See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/history/
AHDS Visual Arts AHDS Visual Arts is based at the Farnham site of the University College for the Creative Arts. AHDS Visual Arts’s mission is to support research, learning and teaching, by providing visual arts digital resources through online access and long term preservation; and to encourage, support and facilitate engagement with visual arts digital resources, through collaborative and creative endeavour, primarily within UK Higher and Further Education.It promotes good practice for the creation and use of visual arts digital resources, and provides advice and training in their creation and use. See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/visualarts/
AHDS Archaeology AHDS Archaeology, based at the University of York, is hosted by the Archaeology Data Service. AHDS Archaeology supports research, learning and teaching with high quality and dependable digital resources. It does this by preserving digital data in the long term, and by promoting and disseminating a broad range of data in archaeology. It promotes good practice in the use of digital data in archaeology, it provides technical advice to the research community, and supports the deployment of digital technologies. See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/archaeology/
These five AHDS subject centres, in conjunction with the AHDS Executive, provide good coverage over the arts and humanities disciplines. While there are many subject areas which do not have subject centres of their own, these are often catered for by the existing centres. For example, someone researching in Theology might fi nd resources and advice in a number of the subject centres. The cross-search catalogue provided by the AHDS Executive enables the discovery of AHDS resources across these subject areas.
Services Provided by the AHDS
The AHDS provides numerous services to different sectors of the community which all reflect its three main aims to provide long-term preservation for resources, provide access to these resources, and encourage the creation of better resources through advice on good practice. It currently holds a substantial collection of electronic texts, databases, images, and mixed media resources relevant to teaching and research in a wide range of arts and humanities disciplines. The forms of metadata used in each of the centres is determined by the needs and standards in that subject area. However, the conversion of all of these to an agreed common metadata format allows the cross-disciplinary discovery of resources. Similarly, different resources may have a number of restrictions on their use, or require a variety of delivery mechanisms appropriate to that resource.
Services to Users The AHDS provides free or at-cost access to all of its services and collections for Higher and Further Education communities. It creates an online catalogue and delivery methods for the resources deposited with the AHDS. The AHDS subject centres are happy to advise on the availability and use of resources, whether they may be fi t for the user’s intended purpose, or possible alternative resources. They are also happy to collaborate with those seeking to improve and extend the usefulness of existing collections. The main service given to users is the access to the wonderful richness of resources produced by and for the higher education community in the UK.
Services to Funding Applicants The AHDS provides free advice for those applying for funding to create a digital resource in the arts and humanities. It is funded specifi cally to provide help and advice for those writing applications for AHRC funding or British Academy funding, however, it will attempt to help others on a best effort basis. The AHDS is happy to read drafts of AHRC and British Academy funding applications, however, you should contact the relevant centre significantly in advance of the deadline to arrange this. If successfully funded, the AHDS is happy to liaise with and provide advice to the project throughout its lifetime. Those who receive project funding from the British Academy or AHRC are required by the terms of their funding to deposit a copy of the resource with the AHDS. This helps to ensure that resources created with public money do not simply vanish, and has become a model for similar initiatives internationally.
Services to Funding Agencies In an intentionally circular process which encourages the creation of better resources in preservation-friendly formats, the AHDS also assesses the technical appendices for AHRC funding applications with a signifi cant digital output. It provides expert reviews of what the application claims concerning the project management of technical aspects, data development methods, infrastructural support, data preservation and sustainability, access, copyright and IPR. This also acts as another method by which advice can be returned to the funding applicant. The AHDS is also quite active in the development of key standards by participating in relevant standards bodies and encouraging their application. This, along with the advice and guidance given to resource creators, benefits funding agencies by helping to ensure value for money in the creation of publicly funded resources in preservation friendly formats through sustainable methodologies.
Services to Resource Creators The AHDS provides expert guidance and training on the creation and scholarly use of digital materials. It does this through a variety of means including workshops, seminars, training courses, participation in academic conferences, and publications. In addition to submitting academic articles in the relevant subject areas, the AHDS itself publishes a number of Guides to Good Practice, Information Papers on particular topics, and Case Studies of successful projects. (5) The AHDS will participate in collaborative projects with resource creators to create, curate and disseminate digital resources. One of the foremost activities of the AHDS is the provision of a centralised data archive of deposited resources for long-term preservation. These are then made available for dissemination by the AHDS on behalf of the resource creator. The AHDS provides cataloguing and metadata for the resource as an AHDS collection using recognised international standards. In addition the resource will be promoted and publicised using wellestablished and recognised channels for the dissemination of information concerning new AHDS deposits.
Depositing with the AHDS
If you have created a digital resource that you feel may benefi t others in your subject area as a primary source, then depositing with the AHDS is a generally straight-forward process: simply contact the relevant AHDS subject centre for advice and support. They will inform you of each step to be taken – from copying your data and documentation to the fi nal transfer of your resource into AHDS digital repository. Don’t wait until the end of your project to make contact. For best results liaise with the AHDS from the beginning and throughout the life of your project.
Conclusion
The future for the AHDS looks good. The AHDS is always looking for new ways to meet the challenges which working with digital resources inevitably create. The changing nature of the subject communities in the arts and humanities, and the perpetual forward development of computing technology, mean that AHDS must be ready to evolve to meet new requirements and challenges whilst simultaneously maintaining those aspects, such as the strong subject focus found in the expert centres, which have led to it becoming so successful. It is hoped that the continued work by the AHDS will help keep the digital resources of the past for the researchers of the future.
Notes
1. A PDF copy of the original report is available from http://www.ahds.ac.uk/about/publications/
2. For contact information for any branch of the AHDS see the AHDS website at http://www.ahds.ac.uk/
3. See http://www.tei-c.org/ for information about the TEI consortium.
4. See, for example, http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ as an example of one umbrella group encouraging best practice.
5. See http://www.ahds.ac.uk/about/publications/ for a list of publications the AHDS provides.
