Life images

LIFE2

LIFE2 was the second phase of the LIFE project, running for 18 months from March 2007 to August 2008. LIFE2 refined the LIFE methodology adding four new exemplar case studies to further build upon LIFE1.

WP1: Validation of the economic modelling and methodology for the Lifecycle and Generic Preservation formulae developed in Phase 1 of the LIFE project, and further technical development of the models. A report on the LIFE1 and the LIFE model by an economist consultant has broadly given a stamp of approval on our work. We've also released an updated version (v1.1) of the model for comment. The documentation is available from our website.

WP2: Case Studies 1 and 2, which developed a range of costing studies, to complement the outputs of the Case Studies in Phase 1 of LIFE. These were based on repository development, and used the SHERPA-LEAP and SHERPA-DP projects as testbeds for identifying lifecycle and digital preservation costs.

WP3: Case Study 3 The Burney Collection, looked at enabling effective planning and decision making for the cost of preservation for collections that exist as both analogue and digital. Over a number of years a great deal of funding has been made available to UK institutions for enhancing the access and preservation of paper-based materials via the creation of digital surrogates. The resulting digital objects vary from project to project in terms of standards, storage, formats and metadata. This material gradually becomes a greater preservation problem over time, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for institutions to plan for and take appropriate action to preserve.

WP4: Pulled the threads together. An end-of-project Report which compares lifecycle and preservation costings for analogue materials, material in repositories, primary data and digital surrogates and comes to a set of conclusions on the value-for-money appropriateness of each of these approaches to long-term curation.

  • Link: UCL Library Services
  • Link: British Library
  • Link: Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute
  • Link: JISC
  • Link: RIN
  • Link: LIBER

for enquiries contact life@bl.uk
LIFE (Life Cycle Information for E-Literature) is a funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Research Information Network (RIN) and is a collaboration between University College London (UCL) and the British Library