Open for learning: Gaelic collections and the Gaelic Digital Apprentice [1120] Members : #OER16

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Public Group Active 8 years, 8 months ago

Tue, Apr 19 2016, 2:00pm – 3:30pm

Authors: Gill Hamilton, and Andrew McDougall

Room: Pentland (East)

Theme: Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education

Type: Presentation

Description

National Library of Scotland is committed to providing open access to its internationally renowned collections and will make a third digitally accessible by 2025.

In October 2015, the Library announced that it had completed digitisation of every known out-of-copyright Gaelic print item in its collection. These 1,200+ resources and their associated transcriptions are made available online under a Creative Commons license making them accessible for the first time to people outwith Edinburgh and to Gaels in Scotland and around the world.

To deliver enhanced access and interpretation of this Gaelic language collection, the Library has developed an innovative and progressive program to use and re-use these open access resources. With support from Bòrd na Gàidhlig, the Library is employing a Gaelic Digital Apprentice. The Apprentice will create digital learning content based on the Gaelic collections (and also the Library’s film and manuscript collections) to deliver enhanced access to and interpretation of Gaelic cultural heritage, and to undertake a program of outreach to Gaelic communities. These learning resources will help sustain communities of Gaelic learning and also demonstrate that working with cultural heritage resources and the Gaelic language is a viable career choice for young people.

Making the Gaelic collection openly available has acted as a driver for the Library in several areas; its obligations under the Gaelic Language Act, its ongoing commitment to youth employability, the strategic priorities on learning and research, and its policy on metadata and digital content licensing

The presentation will outline the above and give progress to date.

References

National Library of Scotland. (2015). The way forward: Library strategy 2015-2020. Available: http://www.nls.uk/media/1194639/2015-strategy-2.pdf. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

National Library of Scotland. (2015). Hundreds more Gaelic items available online. Available: http://www.nls.uk/news/archive/2015/10/gaelic-items-online. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig. (2015). About Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Available: http://www.gaidhlig.org.uk/bord/en/. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

The Scottish Government. (2005). Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005.Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2005/7/contents. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

The Scottish Government. (2014). Developing the young workforce.Available: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0046/00466386.pdf. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

National Library of Scotland. (2015). Metadata and Digital Content Licensing Policy. Available: http://www.nls.uk/media/1176717/metadata-digital-licencing-policy.pdf. Last accessed 29 November 2015.

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