The University of Cambridge’s Big Data Strategic Research Initiative are pleased to announce a multidisciplinary conference on long term data preservation, to be held at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge on 14-15 March 2016.
As the worldwide volume of digital data undergoes exponential growth, Big Data technology allows unexpected value to be derived from existing and new datasets, and increasingly huge datasets to be recorded across all areas of academic research. As data volumes grow, and electronic storage deteriorates, the recoverability of this data is dependent upon curation of electronic archives and replacement of storage media, along with the ability to discover and access the data stored using technologies that may soon be obsolete. Decisions will need to be made about which data is kept, how it is stored, and how it can be accessed, in order that the scientific and human record from the current digital age is appropriately preserved for the future.
This two-day conference will address perspectives from across disciplines on long term data preservation and access, including technology, policy and historical perspectives on data as our human record. This conference is organised by Cambridge Big Data in partnership with the Cambridge Digital Humanities Network and the University Library, which celebrates its 600th anniversary in 2016. We acknowledge the kind support of EPSRC and Cambridge University Press in hosting this event.
Registration is now open for the conference – for full details on the programme please visit www.bigdata.cam.ac.uk/events/cambridge-events/our-digital-future-2016/programme/.