THEATRE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
SYMPOSIUM
"What happens when the money runs out?": Librarians and the digital resources challenge
Catherine Owen (University of Glasgow) of Performing Arts Data Service, discusses a question increasingly asked by creators and users of the burgeoning numbers of digital resources available to scholars and researchers, "what happens when the money runs out?" Short-term thinking from funding bodies, educational institutions and cultural heritage organisations means that many flagship digital projects of the late 1990s are already threatened with extinction. Can librarians offer any solutions to the problems inherent in maintaining vulnerable digital materials in the longer term? What role do librarians have to play in ensuring that future digital projects are created with longevity in mind? The Performing Arts Data Service was established in the UK in 1997 to ensure researchers and scholars access to quality resources in their subject areas and to ensure that resources are maintained and preserved for future scholarly use. This presentation takes stock of the successes and failures of the past 6 years and asks whether the broader library community will be faced with similar challenges in the near future.
