A PhD Research Placement opportunity in digital preservation and long term digital collection management is available at the British Library. The opportunity will focus specifically on the role and function of virus checking within a long term digital collection management and digital preservation environment.
Computer viruses are currently an under-explored aspect of digital preservation. While there is a widespread assumption that virus checking is an essential part of any practical digital preservation implementation, particularly at ingest, there are a range of interrelated questions that have not been explored in that much detail. In hosting this PhD research placement, the British Library is keen to gain a greater insight into the types of viruses that may be found with the digital collections, a better understanding of the real issues and risks that we might need to deal with as a result, and an increased awareness of how virus checking software deals with legacy viruses and its role in the Library's processing of digital content.
This is a three month placement that can be hosted either at the Library’s St Pancras site in London or at the Library’s Boston Spa site in Yorkshire. The closing date for applications is February 19th.
This is not a technical placement. However, the student will be expected to be computer literate and comfortable in extending their computing skills to analyse files and script-based output as required. The placement could appeal to computer literate students in a range of academic disciplines and subject areas, including the History of Science and Technology, Digital Humanities, Museum Studies, Archival or Library Science, Information Management, Computer Science. However, we are open to applications from PhD students from any discipline who have an interest in this area.
For more information and to apply, see https://www.bl.uk/news/2018/january/phd-research-placements-2018.