A nine dimensional framework for digital cultural heritage organizational sustainability

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to report on how library and information science (LIS) as a field operationalizes the concept of organizational sustainability for managing digital resources, projects and infrastructures such as digital libraries and repositories over time. It introduces a nine dimensional framework for organizational sustainability in the digital cultural heritage community. Design/methodology/approach-Content analysis of publications from three LIS databases (2000-2015). Findings-Comparing the articles to the nine dimension framework shows that most LIS articles discuss technology, financial or management dimensions. Fewer articles describe disaster planning, assessment or policy dimensions. Research limitations/implications-Three LIS databases might not include all relevant journals, conferences, white papers and other materials. The data set also did not include books; library management textbooks might include useful material on organizational sustainability. Claims about the prevalence of themes are subject to methodological limits of content analysis. Practical implications-Organizations that steward digital collections need to be clear about what they mean when they are referring to organizational sustainability so that they can make appropriate decisions for future-proofing their collections. The analysis would also suggest for a greater need to consider the full range of dimensions of organizational sustainability. Originality/value-By introducing a new nine dimensional framework of organizational sustainability the authors hope to promote more and better conversations within the LIS community about organizational sustainability. The authors hope these conversations will lead to productive action and improvements in the arrangements of people and work necessary to keep digital projects and services going over time, given ongoing challenges.

Sustainability of digital humanities projects as a publication and documentation challenge

“…al., 2017;Montoya, 2016;and Schaffner et.a;. A comprehensive review of literature published in LIS journals about the topic of sustainability (Eschenfelder et. al., 2019) shows that this interest remains strong, but also belies a number of the limitations on the understanding of a digital humanities project and its contribution, discussed above.…”

“…related to digital libraries, archives, and repositories over time' (Eschenfelder et. al., 2019), but was also generally conceptialised as simply as 'a value (similar to inclusiveness or efficiency) that ought to motivate action.'…”

“…al., 2019), but was also generally conceptialised as simply as 'a value (similar to inclusiveness or efficiency) that ought to motivate action.' (Eschenfelder et. al., 2019).…”

Do the stars align?: Stakeholders and strategies in libraries' curation of an astronomy dataset

“…However, no approach guarantees long‐term funding stability (Vinopal & McCormick, 2013), as the need to find new grants or customers are continual, and library budgets are under constant pressure (Britto & Kinsley, 2018). Decisions about staffing and technology acquisition also concern sustainability and operational costs (Eschenfelder et al, 2019).…”

“…Many libraries are implementing data repositories as part of their RDS, seeking to partner with dataset producers to provide long-term curation of their datasets. Repositories require business and sustainability plans (i.e., how to generate revenue and minimize costs to maintain the repository long-term) (Eschenfelder et al, 2019). Many possibilities exist for generating revenue (Kitchin, Collins, & Frost, 2015).…”