Live and kicking: the impact and sustainability of digital collections in the humanities

Digitisation initiatives in libraries, archives, museums and educational institutions have created a 'deluge' of data in the humanities that has transformed the information landscape and the way it is navigated for research and teaching. The use of digital collections for scholarship – using ICT based tools and methods – has been the basis of transformative and innovative research across the disciplines, allowing enhanced access to materials, and supporting new modes of collaboration and communication. Digital collections development has required a huge investment of public and private funding, and has, in turn, engendered an even greater requirement for continued investment to expand, enhance and augment the existing digital knowledge base, and to embed these collections in research and scholarship. More importantly, issues of sustainability and preservation of digital resources over the long term have an impact on the long tem use and impact of digital collections. This paper discusses the research programme in digital collections at the National Library of Wales, and how it developing an evidence base for the use, value and impact of the digital collections of Wales, and investigating the relationship between impact and the long terms sustainability of digital collections