Mission and Goals

The aim of the Digital Preservation Coalition is to secure the preservation of digital resources in the UK and to work with others internationally to secure our global digital memory and knowledge base.

In order to achieve this aim, the Coalition has the following long-term goals:

• producing, providing, and disseminating information on current research and practice and building expertise amongst its members to accelerate their learning and generally widen the pool of professionals skilled in digital preservation.
• Instituting a concerted and co-ordinated effort to get digital preservation on the agenda of key stakeholders in terms that they will understand and find persuasive.
• Acting in concert to make arguments for appropriate and adequate funding to secure the nation's investment in digital resources and ensure an enduring global digital memory.
• Providing a common forum for the development and co-ordination of digital preservation strategies in the UK and placing them within an international context.
• Promoting and developing services, technology, and standards for digital preservation.
• Forging strategic alliances with relevant agencies nationally and internationally, and working collaboratively together and with industry and research organisations, to address shared challenges in digital preservation.
• Attracting funding to the Coalition to support achievement of its goals and programmes.

Principles of the Coalition

The activities and members of the Coalition will operate by the following principles:

Openness: The Coalition and its members commit to promoting and disseminating information and sharing outcomes so that we can all learn and benefit as quickly as possible from transferable lessons and experience (both positive and negative).

Collaboration: Digital preservation has become so significant a phenomenon (in scope, complexity, and investment), that no single organisation can address all the challenges alone.

The Coalition provides a forum for members to identify relevant issues and support to pursue collaboration across organisations and sectors to mutual benefit.

Collective benefit: Core Coalition activities supported by resources from its membership must be of common interest and benefit to them. Projects or the activities of individual members may have narrower collective benefit and can contribute to the wider goals of the Coalition but are separately funded.

Vendor neutrality: The goals of the Coalition are generic and will be vendor neutral. It will support the development of standards and generic approaches to digital preservation, which can be implemented by a range of hardware, software, and service vendors.