September 15, 2014

BitCurator Consortium Launches

By sysadmin

The Educopia Institute is pleased to announce the launch of the BitCurator Consortium (BCC), a new independent, community-led membership association to support the curation of born- digital materials by libraries, archives, and museums. Members of the BitCurator user community have founded BCC to enhance, promote, and explore this growing area of professional activity.

“Managing born-digital acquisitions is becoming a top concern in research libraries, archives, and museums worldwide,” shares co-founder Dr. Christopher (Cal) Lee. “The BCC now provides a crucial hub where curators can learn from each other, share challenges and successes, and together define and advance technical and administrative workflows for born-digital content.” Co-founder Dr. Matthew Kirschenbaum adds: “Tools without actively invested communities wither on the vine, become dead bits. The BCC is not just an extension of BitCurator, in a very real sense it will now become BitCurator.”

Institutions responsible for the curation of born-digital materials are invited to become members of the BCC. New members will join an active, growing community of practice and gain entry into an international conversation around this emerging set of practices. Other member benefits include:

  • Voting rights
  • Eligibility to serve on the BCC Executive Council and Committees
  • Professional development and training opportunities
  • Subscription to a dedicated BCC member mailing list
  • Special registration rates for BCC events

About BitCurator

The BitCurator environment is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that includes open source and public domain digital forensics tools and unique reporting mechanisms and user interfaces designed to assist libraries, archives, and museums with the curation of born-digital materials. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the BitCurator project has developed, packaged, and documented open-source forensics and data analysis tools to create forensic disk images, analyze files and file systems, extract file system metadata, identify and redact sensitive information, and identify and remove duplicate files.

The BCC operates as an affiliated community of the Educopia Institute, a non-profit organization that advances cultural, scientific, and scholarly institutions by catalyzing networks and collaborative communities to facilitate collective impact.

Learn more about BCC and its growing network of libraries, archives, and museums »