A place in history: a guide to using GIS in historical research

CHAPTER 9: PRESERVATION, DOCUMENTATION AND THE ROLE OF THE HISTORY DATA SERVICE

9.3 Depositing data with the History Data Service

The role of the History Data Service is to collect, preserve, and promote the use of digital resources which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching. It is supported in this effort by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Wellcome Trust's History of Medicine Programme, all of which either require or recommend that their grant holders offer for deposit with the HDS any historical data that they may produce during the course of their funded project. The HDS also negotiates access to data held in the collections of other data centres and data archives.

There are a number of benefits to depositing data with the HDS.

Ensuring preservation

Firstly it ensures that the data are preserved. The time and resources invested in the creation of digital resources, and particularly with GIS datasets which can be very expensive to produce, can easily be placed in jeopardy because hardware and software become obsolete, and magnetic media degrade. Consequently it is in the interests of the data creator, potential users of the data, and research funding bodies, that the datasets generated are preserved in the long-term. This involves migrating the data to new hardware and software as the platforms on which the data were created become outdated in order to maintain their usability into the future. This is a costly and complicated procedure, and is often beyond the resources of individual research projects that usually only run for a finite period. This is why many funding agencies make offering the data for deposit a condition of awarding grants that involve data creation.

Providing access

Many historical GIS resources have significant and long-term value to the research and teaching community, and the time and resources invested in their creation can only be fully realised if they are systematically collected and disseminated. Access to such resources can facilitate communication within the research community, encourage the development of important new areas for research, and facilitate further research and debate of current research themes.

The HDS makes deposited data collections available for future re-use by distributing them in a range of formats and on a variety of media. Data collections deposited with the HDS are professionally catalogued, and information about them and any associated publications is made accessible through online catalogues, mailing lists and a variety of other publicity. This means that once the data have been created the maximum amount of use can be made of its potential. Again, given the high cost of creating GIS datasets, this is both important and desirable.

Data are deposited with the HDS with a non-exclusive licence for use in research and teaching. This means that all intellectual property rights and copyright are retained by the copyright holder(s), and that the depositor grants the HDS the necessary permissions to preserve and disseminate the data for use in research and teaching.

Professional recognition

Digital resources deposited with and preserved by the HDS gives professional recognition to the creator of the dataset. By collecting, evaluating, cataloguing and publicising data collections the HDS helps to provide tangible evidence of the scholarly effort involved in data creation. Data collections deposited with the HDS are widely publicised, for example, through workshops and online catalogues, and individual depositors gain professional recognition when their data collections are re-used in research and teaching and cited in subsequent publications.

For more information about depositing data with the HDS see its Guidelines for Depositors.