NDSA:Helen Tibbo

Helen Tibbo, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Biography
Dr. Tibbo is an Alumni Distinguished Professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and teaches in the areas of archives and records management, digital preservation and access, appraisal, and archival reference and outreach. She is also a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and was SAA President 2010-2011. From 2006-2009, Dr. Tibbo was the Principal Investigator (PI) for the IMLS (Institute for Museum and Library Services)-funded DigCCurr I project that developed an International Digital Curation Curriculum for master’s level students (www.ils.unc.edu/digccurr). She is also the PI for DigCCurr II (2008-2012) that extends the Digital Curation Curriculum to the doctoral level. In 2009, IMLS awarded Prof. Tibbo two additional projects, Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21st Century (ESOPI-21) and Closing the Digital Curation Gap (CDCG). ESOPI-21 is a partnership with UNC’s School of Government to provide students with a Master’s of Science in Library/Information Science and a Master’s of Public Administration so that they can work in the public policy arena concerning digital preservation and curation issues and laws. CDCG is a collaboration with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Digital Curation Center (DCC), both of the United Kingdom, to explore educational and guidance needs of cultural heritage information professionals in the digital curation domain in the US and the UK. Dr. Tibbo is a co-PI with collaborators from the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto on a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)-funded project to develop standardized metrics for assessing use and user services for primary sources in government settings. This project extends work that explored user-based evaluation in academic archival settings funded by the Mellon Foundation. Prof. Tibbo is also co-PI on the IMLS-Funded POlicy-Driven Repository Interoperability (PoDRI) project lead by Dr. Richard Marciano and conducted test audits of repositories in Europe and the US with the European Commission-funded ARPARSEN project during the summer of 2011.

Interest in Serving on the Coordinating Committee
Digital curation and preservation have been at the core of my research and teaching activities for well over a decade. In that time I have witnessed many new developments and tools along with a cavalcade of research projects both in the US and worldwide. Certainly the field has progressed a great deal in the past fifteen years but we have not yet solved the most fundamental problem – that of sustainability. Unlike analog objects that can endure long periods of benign (and sometimes not so benign) neglect, digital objects need constant care even when times are economically tough. Because it is a grass-root, community-based organization, NDSA, under the leadership of the Library of Congress, has the potential to serve as a sustainability mechanism. No organizations can take on the role of trustworthy digital repository for the nation or even a small part of the national heritage and information without being part of a larger network. Only through mechanisms such as NSDA will the nation’s cultural treasures and more mundane, day-to-day digital data be preserved. I believe that my research and pedagogical experience not only make me ideally suited to serve on the NDSA Coordinating Committee but oblige me to offer my participation.

Communities Represented
Academic

Length of Term
3 years (ending December 31, 2014)