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The 2007 Awards Ceremony

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The winner of the 2007 Digital Preservation Award was announced by Loyd Grossman at the British Museum on the 27th of September 2007. The National Archives was awarded the prestigious Award at the Conservation Awards ceremony.

For more information about all the Conservation Award winners and event please go to Conservation Awards Website

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The Winning Team from The National Archives; Fleur Soper, Alison Heatherington, Adrian Brown and Robert Taylor

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The 2007 Digital Preservation Award trophy

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Frances Boyle, DPC Executive Director with Ronald Milne, DPC Chair of the Board of Directors

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Adrian Brown from The National Archives receives the winning cheque from Loyd Grossman

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Paul Ayris and Rory Mcleod from LIFE

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Susan Thomas, Renhart Gittens, Fran Baker from PARADIGM

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Andrew McHugh, Astrid Schoger, Susanne Dobratz, Raivo Ruusalepp TRAC, nestor and DRAMBORA

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Philip Beresford from The Web Curator Tool

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Conservation winners, judges and organisers

Third Digital Preservation Award 2007

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Press Release Number Two - 27th September 2007

Accolade for new tool to save digital archives for future generations

27 September 2007

An innovative tool to analyse and identify computer file formats has won the 2007 Digital Preservation Award. DROID, developed by The National Archives in London, can examine any mystery file and identify its format. The tool works by gathering clues from the internal 'signatures' hidden inside every computer file, as well as more familiar elements such as the filename extension (.jpg, for example), to generate a highly accurate 'guess' about the software that will be needed to read the file.

Identifying file formats is a thorny issue for archivists. Organisations such as the National Archives have an ever-increasing volume of electronic records in their custody, many of which will be crucial for future historians to understand 21st-century Britain. But with rapidly changing technology and an unpredictable hardware base, preserving files is only half of the challenge. There is no guarantee that today's files will be readable or even recognisable using the software of the future.

Now, by using DROID and its big brother, the unique file format database known as PRONOM, experts at the National Archives are well on their way to cracking the problem. Once DROID has labelled a mystery file, PRONOM's extensive catalogue of software tools can advise curators on how best to preserve the file in a readable format. The database includes crucial information on software and hardware lifecycles, helping to avoid the obsolescence problem. And it will alert users if the program needed to read a file is no longer supported by manufacturers.

PRONOM's system of identifiers has been adopted by the UK government and is the only nationally-recognised standard in its field.

The judges chose The National Archives from a strong shortlist of five contenders, whittled down from the original list of thirteen. The prestigious award was presented in a special ceremony at The British Museum on 27 September 2007 as part of the 2007 Conservation Awards, sponsored by Sir Paul McCartney.

Ronald Milne, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Digital Preservation Coalition, which sponsors the award, said:

"The National Archives fully deserves the recognition that accompanies this award."

For more information on the two tools please see: the PRONOM Technical Registry and Digital Record Object Identification (DROID) file format identification.

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Notes to Editors

The £5000 Digital Preservation Award is sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition. This prestigious award recognises achievement and encourages innovation in the new and challenging field of digital preservation - simply put, preserving things whose very existence depends on computers.
The Digital Preservation Coalition was established in 2001 to foster joint action to address the urgent challenges of securing the preservation of digital resources in the UK and to work with others internationally to secure our global digital memory and knowledge base. For further information, see www.dpconline.org
The Conservation Awards are the UK's leading awards for the preservation of cultural heritage. They are sponsored by Sir Paul McCartney and supported by key organisations in conservation and collections care: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), English Heritage, the Institute of Conservation (Icon), the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and the National Preservation Office (NPO).
For more information on the other short listed partnerships, see www.conservationawards.org.uk
Details of the 2007 judges are available online at www.dpconline.org/graphics/awards/2007panel.html
The National Archives is at the heart of information policy - setting standards and supporting innovation in information and records management across the UK, and providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information. This work helps inform today's decisions and ensure that they become tomorrow's permanent record. The National Archives is also the official archive for England, Wales and the central UK government, containing 900 years of history from Domesday Book to the present, with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to recently created digital files and archived websites. Increasingly, these records are being put online, making them universally accessible. For more information, see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Press Release Number One - 5th June 2007

THE 2007 CONSERVATION AWARDS - DIGITAL PRESERVATION AWARD
Short-list Announcement Today

- 5 June 2007 -

The Digital Preservation Award of £5,000 is sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition. This prestigious Award recognises achievement and encourages innovation in the new and challenging field of digital preservation - simply put, preserving things whose very existence depends on computers.
Short-listed for the Digital Preservation Award are:

1. LIFE: The British Library.
LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-Literature) has made a major contribution to understanding the long-term costs of digital preservation, an essential step in helping institutions plan for the future. Its methodology models the digital lifecycle and calculates the costs of preserving digital information for the next 5, 10 or 100 years. Organisations can apply this process to understand costs and focus resources on those items or collections most in need of them.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/life/1/conference.shtml

2. Web Curator Tool software development project: National Library of New Zealand & The British Library.
The web is a huge and interconnected digital asset with which we are all familiar, and one in which material changes and disappears with frightening regularity. Conscious of this problem, the National Library of New Zealand and The British Library worked together in an international collaboration to build this tool, which supports selective and thematic web-harvesting by collaborating users in a library environment. Swift development over just 10 months enabled it to be released as free software for the benefit of the international web-archiving community in September 2006, from webcurator.sf.net.
http://webcurator.sourceforge.net/

3. Active Preservation at The National Archives - PRONOM Technical Registry and DROID file format identification tool: The National Archives of the UK.
One of the fundamental challenges of digital preservation is to understand the technologies required to access digital information, and plan the actions we will need to take to ensure continued access in the future in the face of constant technological change. Is the software needed to read this document still supported by the supplier, and is the format of this digital movie still readable by most computers? PRONOM is a unique and innovative online service which helps to answer questions like these and includes a knowledge base of technical information about over 600 file formats and 250 software tools, which has been developed by The National Archives to answer these challenges.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/aboutapps/pronom/puid.htm

4. PARADIGM (The Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media): Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, & John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester.
Personal archives are important components of cultural memory, but inexperience in curating their modern counterparts - e-mail, digital photographs, online calendars, blogs and many more - puts the survival of today's personal histories at risk. The diversity and volatility of digital technology far exceeds that of any medium that creators, archivists and researchers have previously worked with. The Paradigm project has worked with politicians, archivists and researchers to investigate these challenges in an exemplar project so that the archives of significant contemporaries can continue to enrich our history.
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/

5. Digital Repository Audit and Certification: CRL, RLG-OCLC, NARA, the DCC, DPE and Nestor.
As the number of organisations, both public and private, preserving digital information increases, it becomes important to be able to assess how well they are doing and how well-prepared they are for the unknown challenges of the future. The Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC) Criteria and Checklist (maintained by the US Center for Research Libraries), the nestor project's Criteria Catalogue and the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) published by the Digital Curation Centre and DigitalPreservationEurope present complementary methods for the self assessment, audit and certification of digital repository infrastructures.
http://www.repositoryaudit.eu/

All the short-listed projects will give a presentation to the Digital Preservation Award judges on 19 June. The winners of the Conservation Awards 2007 will be announced at the British Museum on 27 September.

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Notes to Editors:
The Conservation Awards are the UK's leading awards for the preservation of cultural heritage. They are sponsored by Sir Paul McCartney and supported by key organisations in conservation and collections care: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), English Heritage, the Institute of Conservation (Icon) and the National Preservation Office. The Digital Preservation Coalition and the Anna Plowden Trust sponsor the awards in their names. For more information visit the Awards website: www.conservationawards.org.uk, which includes links to information about the supporting partners and sponsors.

The Digital Preservation Coalition was established in 2001 to foster joint action to address the urgent challenges of securing the preservation of digital resources in the UK and to work with others internationally to secure our global digital memory and knowledge base. For further information see the website at: http://www.dpconline.org

2007 Judges
Kevin Ashley (Chair of the Judging Panel), Head of Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre.
Michael Day, Research Officer at UKOLN, University of Bath.
Helen Hockx-Yu, Programme Manager, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).
William Kilbride, Research Manager, Glasgow Museums.
Andreas Rauber, Associate Professor, Department of Software Technology and Interactive Systems (IFS), The Vienna University of Technology.
Chris Rusbridge, Director, Digital Curation Centre (DCC).
Helen Shenton, Head of Collection Care, the British Library.
Dave Thompson, Digital Curator, Wellcome Library.

See the Digital Preservation Coalition website for further information on the judges:
http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/awards/2007panel.html

Second Digital Preservation Award 2005

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Press Release Number Two - November 22nd 2005

International team wins the 2005 Digital Preservation Award

The PREMIS Working Group - a team of 30 experts from five countries - was awarded the prestigious Digital Preservation Award for 2005 tonight by Loyd Grossman OBE FSA at the Conservation Awards ceremony held at the British Museum.

This is the tenth anniversary of the Conservation Awards, which this year has a new sponsor - Sir Paul McCartney. This is the second year to include the DPC-sponsored £5,000 Digital Preservation Award, which was awarded to the PREMIS Working Group for "leadership and advancement in digital preservation which will benefit the UK"

The winning team's work is to do with "preservation meta-data", which is essential to ensure that digital objects remain accessible over time. . The work of the PREMIS Working Group goes a long way towards establishing an international open-source standard for handling meta-data, which will help libraries and institutions around the world to archive digital content - the volume of which is doubling every year.

The PREMIS team were chosen ahead of four other shortlisted projects, including overseas entries from the Vienna University of Technology and the National Archive of the Netherlands. Two UK entries also made the shortlist: a team from the BBC for their work rescuing and restoring early colour programming (including unseen episodes of Dr WHO); and the UK Web Archiving Consortium, a group lead by the British Library, which is creating a searchable archive of selected UK websites.

The judges were impressed by the work PREMIS has done in compiling a "data dictionary" identifying core digital preservation metadata, which they have supported with practical examples and a software protocol. A key factor in the decision was the international scope of PREMIS, and the consensus building and collaboration that is so crucial in so many digital preservation issues.

Richard Boulderstone, Chair of the Judging Panel, said: "The DPC is delighted to again have had a very strong shortlist for their annual Award, with entries from both the UK and overseas. This demonstrates an increasing awareness of digital preservation and the need to find workable solutions."

In his original presentation to the judging panel, Brian Lavoie of the PREMIS Working group said: "This work illustrates a gradual shift from articulating the problem to solving it ... it's not so much 'Why is digital preservation important?' anymore; rather, 'What must be done to achieve preservation objectives?'."

Preservation metadata was crucial to implementing reliable, sustainable digital preservation programs, he said. "The issues of long term storage of digital resources are unique to the digital space. A digital object needs to be supported, wrapped in this metadata so it can be kept."

TV presenter and culinary entrepreneur Loyd Grossman, who helped to launch the DPC in 2002, presented the award. "It's reassuring to see how much things have progressed since we started, but it is still daunting to realise how much still needs to be done," he said. "History will judge us very harshly if we are unable to overcome the obstacles to preserving access to our burgeoning digital cultural heritage so we need to encourage and reward those who are working to secure it."

Notes to editors:

Digital Preservation Coalition is a cross-sectoral membership organisation of 27 major UK organisations, which aims to ensure that digital preservation is kept on the policy agenda and practical progress in preserving access to important digital resources is made. It was launched in February 2002. Information about its work can be found at http://www.dpconline.org.

Preservation metadata is sometimes referred to as the glue that binds everything together. Without it, effective long-term digital preservation is not possible and the search is on for cost-effective strategies to implement it in a standardised way. The PREMIS Working Group have compiled a data dictionary, which identifies core digital preservation metadata, supported by practical examples and an XML schema to enable more efficient transfer of metadata between different organisations.

Brian Lavoie is Senior Research Scientist, Office of Research, OCLC. Founded in 1967, the Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs. More than 53,548 libraries in 96 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.

The Digital Preservation Coalition sponsors the Digital Preservation Award under the banner of the Conservation Awards, which are supported by Sir Paul McCartney and managed in partnership by key organisations in conservation, restoration and preservation management: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the UK Institute for Conservation (UKIC), English Heritage, the Institute of Paper Conservation (IPC) and the National Preservation Office. UKIC and IPC are in the process of merging with other organisations during 2005 into a new larger professional body for conservation of the cultural heritage, the Institute of Conservation. The Anna Plowden Trust sponsors the Award for Research and Innovation in Conservation.

The 2005 judging panel were:

Richard Boulderstone (Chair of the Judging Panel), Director, e-Strategy, British Library
Sheila Anderson, Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service
Kevin Ashley, Head of the Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre
David Dawson, Head of the Digital Futures Team, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Hans Jansen, Head of Research & Development Division, National Library of the Netherlands
Maggie Jones, Executive Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition (sponsor of the Digital Preservation Award)
Chris Rusbridge, Director, Digital Curation Centre
David Seaman, Executive Director, Digital Library Federation

For further information about the DPC and the Digital Preservation Award contact Anna Arthur at AnnaLeone PR on 020 7637 2994

For more information about all the Conservation Award winners and event please go to Conservation Awards Website

Press Release Number One - July 12th 2005

The 2005 Conservation Awards - Digital Preservation Award Shortlist Announcement Today

London, 12 July 2005 - The Digital Preservation Award of (£5,000) is sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition. This prestigious Award recognises the many new initiatives being undertaken in the challenging field of digital preservation. Shortlisted for the Digital Preservation Award are:

Choosing the optimal digital preservation strategy
Applicant: Vienna University of Technology

The Vienna University of Technology recognises the difficulty in choosing a long-term preservation strategy, whether the material be digitised or born digital. It has developed a workflow evaluation tool to assist in the selection of an optimal preservation solution (eg. migration, emulation, or computer museum), thus enabling the user to make an informed, well documented and accountable decision for the implementation of a specific strategy for a given collection. Their approach has a wide application and has been successfully applied to video, audio and document records.

Digital Preservation Testbed
Applicant: National Archives of the Netherlands

The Digital Preservation Testbed project, developed by the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands, is a practical research project to investigate options to secure long-term accessibility to archival records. The Archief carried out experiments based on series of solution-oriented research questions, in order to decide which preservation strategy or combination of strategies would be most suitable. The Testbed focused on three different methods for the long-term preservation of digital information, namely migration, XML and emulation. These methods are assessed not only in terms of their effectiveness, but also in terms of their limitations, cost and possibilities for use. From June 2005, the Testbed will operate as the Digital Preservation System of the Nationaal Archief.

PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)
Applicant: PREMIS Working Group

Sponsored by the OCLC and RLG, PREMIS is an international working group set up to define a core set of preservation metadata elements, applicable to a broad range of digital preservation activities and to identify and evaluate alternative strategies for encoding, storing, managing, and exchanging preservation metadata - in particular, the core metadata elements - within and across digital preservation systems. Its activities culminated in the release of a Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata: Final Report of the PREMIS Working Group (May 2005). The Data Dictionary is a comprehensive guide to core metadata for supporting the long-term preservation of digital materials. PREMIS has made a vital contribution to the development of effective digital preservation solutions by creating and moving forward an international standard for preservation metadata.

Reverse Standards Conversion
Applicant: British Broadcasting Corporation

The recovery of significant early British colour television programmes by the BBC, which were degraded when they were converted to an American TV standard in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An innovative project that overcomes problems dealing with an obsolete video format, resulting in the digital conversion of some 80 programmes to broadcast quality, ensuring their preservation for future generations.

UK Web Archiving Consortium
Applicant: The Consortium

Six leading UK institutions, The British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, JISC, the National Archives and the Wellcome Library, have formed the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) to deliver a searchable archive of selected UK websites. This pioneering project addresses the lifecycle of websites from selection, through rights clearance and capture, to access by the public and long-term preservation. The collaborative venture went live at www.webarchive.org.uk on May 9th 2005.

Judging

All the shortlisted projects will give a presentation to the Digital Preservation Awards judges in September. The members of the 2005 judging panel are:

Richard Boulderstone (Chair of the Judging Panel), Director, e-Strategy, British Library
Sheila Anderson, Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service
Kevin Ashley, Head of the Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre
David Dawson, Head of the Digital Futures Team, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Hans Jansen, Head of Research & Development Division, National Library of the Netherlands
Maggie Jones, Executive Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition (sponsor of the Digital Preservation Award)
Chris Rusbridge, Director, Digital Curation Centre
David Seaman, Executive Director, Digital Library Federation

Click here for further information on the judging panel.
Update 30 January 2009
The link to Conservation Awards website page disabled as it is no longer available

Also announced this week are the:

Student Conservator of the Year
Anna Plowden Award for Research & Innovation

The winners of the Conservation Awards will be announced at the British Museum on 22 November 2005.

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Notes to Editors:
For further information, please contact:
Maggie Jones, Executive Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tel: 01904 435 362

The Digital Preservation Coalition sponsors the Digital Preservation Award under the banner of the Conservation Awards, which are supported by Sir Paul McCartney and managed in partnership by key organisations in conservation, restoration and preservation management: the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the UK Institute for Conservation (UKIC), English Heritage, the Institute of Paper Conservation (IPC) and the National Preservation Office. UKIC and IPC are in the process of merging with other organisations during 2005 into a new larger professional body for conservation of the cultural heritage, the Institute of Conservation. The Anna Plowden Trust sponsors the Award for Research and Innovation in Conservation.

First Digital Preservation Award 2004

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Press Release Number Three - 23rd June 2004

Digital Preservation Coalition and Pilgrim Trust announce winner of first Digital Preservation Award

The first Digital Preservation Award worth £5,000 in recognition of leadership and achievement in the developing field of digital preservation, was presented tonight by Loyd Grossman to The National Archives for its Digital Archive at a ceremony held at the British Library.

The National Archives beat off competition from around the world with the first all-purpose digital archive, designed to store Government records in many different formats. As the Modernising Government Agenda aims to have all new records stored and retrieved electronically, it is crucially important that digital records will be preserved as effectively as paper ones. The Digital Archive(www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/preservation/digitalarchive/default.htm [link updated 17/09/2004]) will store important Government records, from public enquiries such as the Hutton Inquiry, to e-mails, web pages and databases.

More and more material is being converted to digital format and increasing quantities of information are available only in digital form. Whether they are used for the day-to-day business of government departments, to support academic research, or for the general public seeking information and entertainment, these resources represent a significant investment and there is an increasing dependence on them.

Well known presenter and supporter of the arts, Loyd Grossman OBE FSA, said "I am delighted to be here this evening to present the award for the inaugural Digital Preservation Award. In the two years since I helped to launch the Digital Preservation Coalition, it is reassuring to see how much things have progressed. But it is still daunting to realise how much still needs to be done so we are indeed grateful to those such as the short listed applicants for tonight's award, for all their continuing efforts. History will judge us very harshly if we are unable to overcome the obstacles to preserving access to our burgeoning digital cultural heritage so we need to encourage and reward those who are working to secure it."

The judging was very close and for this first Award, the judges decided that there should also be a special commendation for one of the other short listed projects, the Specially Commended certificate was presented to The CAMiLEON project for their work on testing technical strategies.

Lynne Brindley, Chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition said, "The DPC is very excited to be sponsoring the first ever award for digital preservation. This is an area of massive historical significance and there is a great need for promoting the forward-looking work of all these projects. I am delighted, on behalf of all members of the DPC that this first award has been given to The National Archives in recognition of their pioneering work on the Digital Archive."

Members of the judging panel for the 2004 Digital Preservation Award were Sheila Anderson Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS); Kevin Ashley Head of Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre; Richard Boulderstone (Chair) Director of e-Strategy, at the British Library; David Dawson Senior ICT Adviser for the Libraries & Information Society Team of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA); Barry Fox independent journalist and broadcaster; Nick Higham formerly BBC Arts and Media correspondent and now presenter of BBC News 24's Factfile; Chris Rusbridge Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow; David Saunders Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, London.

Notes for editors:

Digital Preservation Coalition

The DPC, which was launched in February 2002, is a cross-sectoral membership organisation of 27 major UK organisations, which aims to ensure that digital preservation is kept on the policy agenda and practical progress in preserving access to important digital resources is made. Information about its work can be found at http://www.dpconline.org

The Digital Preservation Award is part of the Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards. Sponsored by the Pilgrim Trust, the Digital Preservation Coalition and the Anna Plowden Trust, the Awards are also supported by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, English Heritage, the National Preservation Office, the Institute of Paper Conservation and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation. Full details of short listed projects are available on the Conservation Awards website at: http://www.conservationawards.org.uk/

The Pilgrim Trust

The Pilgrim Trust was founded in 1930 by Edward Stephen Harkness of New York to award grants for some of Great Britain's more urgent needs and promote the country's future well being. In 2000, the Trustees made 137 grant commitments totalling £2.9 million, to projects involved in social welfare, art and learning, preservation, cataloguing and conservation of records and the repair of historic churches. Further information on the Trust is available at www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk.

The 2004 Judging Panel

Sheila Anderson is Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). The AHDS is a distributed service and preserves material deposited voluntarily by individuals and research groups within Higher Education, or as a condition of awards granted by the Arts and Humanities Research Board.

Kevin Ashley is Head of Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre. For the past ten years, the work of Kevin's group has been primarily involved in the preservation of digital resources on behalf of other organisations. Kevin is a Board member of the Digital Preservation Coalition, a member of the Advisory Council for Erpanet and that of the UK Archives Hub.

Richard Boulderstone (Chair) is Director of e-Strategy at the British Library. This role involves the management and further development of e and IT strategy throughout the British Library, the implementation of digital media projects and services, and the delivery of e-business methods and tools. Major developments to be led by him include the digitisation of many of the Library's collections as well as the archiving of materials that are 'born digital'. Prior to this appointment, Richard has held senior positions in a number of international information providers, working both in the UK and US.

David Dawson is the Senior ICT Adviser for the Libraries & Information Society Team of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). In 1998 David joined the Museums & Galleries Commission as New Technology Adviser, before becoming Senior ICT Adviser. He managed the DCMS/MLA IT Challenge Fund, and is currently working on a range of other projects and strategic developments.

Barry Fox is an independent journalist and broadcaster and winner of several UK Technology press awards. He has contributed regularly to New Scientist magazine for thirty years, and to numerous specialist, hobbyist and trade weeklies and monthlies. Barry is European Contributing Editor for the US-based Warren group of newsletters, including Consumer Electronics Daily. He broadcasts on national and local radio and TV, commenting on technology news and answering listeners' queries live on air.

Nick Higham presents Factfile on BBC News 24, offering background information and analysis on the day's major stories. He was formerly the BBC's arts and media correspondent, reporting for BBC news programmes on television and radio. He has presented programmes and documentaries on Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, BBC Two and World Service. He writes a regular column for Marketing Week magazine and another for BBC News Online. He frequently chairs industry conferences and lectures on the media to students and journalists in the UK and abroad (including Bulgaria and Paraguay).

Chris Rusbridge is Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow, which is active in the area of digital preservation, including being a member of the consortium that successfully bid for the recently created Digital Curation Centre. Chris was previously Programme Director of the JISC Electronic Libraries Programme, where he was closely involved in many digital preservation activities including Cedars and CAMiLEON.

David Saunders is Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, London. After post-doctoral research he joined the National Gallery as a museum scientist. He has been involved in a number of European Community-supported projects in the area of digital imaging of two and three-dimensional works of art. He has been an Editor of Studies in Conservation since 1990, served on the technical committees for the 1994 and 2000 International Institute for Conservation (IIC) congresses and, since 2003 has been Director of Publications for IIC.

For further information about the DPC and the Digital Preservation Award contact Tom Coupe at Anna Arthur PR on 020 7637 2994 or Fiona Cameron at Museums, Libraries & Archives Council on 020 7273 1459

Press Release Number Two - 1st April 2004

Digital Preservation Coalition and Pilgrim Trust announce shortlist for new Digital Preservation Award

This year for the first time the Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards will include a new Award sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). The Digital Preservation Award, worth £5,000, will recognise leadership and achievement in the developing field of digital preservation.

The DPC Award aims to encourage and highlight creative approaches to furthering the digital preservation agenda. The award is aimed at projects that focus on "born-digital" resources rather than those using technology for preservation or conservation purposes and will be awarded to a project which demonstrates leadership and advancement in the digital preservation area.

Richard Boulderstone, Director of e-Strategy at the British Library, who is chairing the Awards Judges, said: "As more and more of our information comes to us through purely digital means, never having a physical form, the work of digital preservation becomes progressively more important if we are to avoid a huge gap in our cultural heritage. The short listed projects represent significant progress in this complex field which still requires considerable support to yield long term benefits."

Other members of the judging panel for the 2004 Digital Preservation Award are Sheila Anderson Director, Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS); Kevin Ashley Head of Digital Archives Department, University of London Computer Centre; David Dawson Senior ICT Adviser for the Libraries & Information Society Team of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA); Barry Fox independent journalist and broadcaster; Nick Higham formerly BBC Arts and Media correspondent and now presenter of BBC News 24's Factfile; Chris Rusbridge Director of Information Services at the University of Glasgow; David Saunders Senior Scientist at the National Gallery, London.

The winner will be announced on 22^nd June by Loyd Grossman at a presentation ceremony at the British Library.

The shortlist for the 2004 Digital Preservation Award is:

The CAMiLEON Project

Bringing together expertise from the University of Leeds (funded by JISC) and the University of Michigan (funded by NSF), the CAMiLEON Project (Creative Archiving at Michigan and Leeds Emulating the Old on the New) developed practical techniques for the use of Emulation in the digital preservation world. These techniques were put into practice with demonstrator developments, in particular a rescue of the BBC Domesday Project using emulation.

The Digital Archive

The National Archives has created the first ever digital archive of electronic Government documents to ensure that records of modern government are preserved securely for future generations. Capable of storing over 100 terabytes of data - equal to 1.5 billion pages of text - the archive also stores sound and graphics files, virtual reality models and even video footage. The archive currently holds records from high profile public enquiries, departmental websites, and the records of parliamentary committees and royal commissions. The Digital Archive is available free of charge in the in public reading rooms at Kew and on The National Archives' Network. A large scale Internet presentation system is in development, to allow access to readers around the world from 2005.

JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy

As a committee of the UK Higher and Further Education Funding Councils, the JISC serves some 200 Higher Education Institutions and 400 Further Education Institutions across the UK and its work therefore has a very wide impact both nationally and internationally.The Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) 2002-5 sets out the case for investment by the sector in digital preservation and the principles and priorities for JISC funded activities and external partnerships to be followed over a three year period.

Preservation Metadata Extraction Tool

Preservation metadata is an essential component of a digital preservation programme. The National Library of New Zealand has commissioned development of a software tool to programmatically extract preservation metadata from the headers of a range of file formats.

The preservation metadata extract tool:

automatically extracts preservation-related metadata from digital files; and
outputs that metadata in a standard format (XML) for uploading into a preservation metadata repository.

Wellcome Library/JISC Web Archiving Project

Perceiving the gap in web archiving activity in Britain, (although aware of initiatives in the USA, Australia, Scandinavia and elsewhere), the Wellcome Library and JISC initiated a project to commission a feasibility study into needs and opportunities for their respective communities. Recognising also that any long-term solution is likely to depend on distributed responsibilities, the project has been developed as a partnership between Wellcome and JISC, with funding split evenly between the two.

Notes for editors:

Digital Preservation Coalition

The DPC, which was launched in February 2002, is a cross-sectoral membership organisation of 27 major UK organisations which aims to ensure that preservation is kept on the policy agenda. Information about its work can be found at http://www.dpconline.org

The Digital Preservation Award is part of the Pilgrim Trust Conservation Awards. Sponsored by the Pilgrim Trust, the Digital Preservation Coalition and the Anna Plowden Trust, the Awards are also supported by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, English Heritage, the National Preservation Office, the Institute of Paper Conservation and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation. Full details of shortlisted projects are available on the Conservation Awards website at: http://www.conservationawards.org.uk/

The Pilgrim Trust

The Pilgrim Trust was founded in 1930 by Edward Stephen Harkness of New York to award grants for some of Great Britain's more urgent needs and promote the country's future well-being. In 2000, the Trustees made 137 grant commitments totalling £2.9 million, to projects involved in social welfare, art and learning, preservation, cataloguing and conservation of records and the repair of historic churches. Further information on the Trust is available at www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk

The 2004 Judging Panel

Richard Boulderstone (Chair) is Director of e-Strategy, at the British Library. This role involves the management and further development of e and IT strategy throughout the British Library, the implementation of digital media projects and services, and the delivery of e-business methods and tools. Major developments to be led by him include the digitisation of many of the Library's collections as well as the archiving of materials that are 'born digital'. Prior to this appointment, Richard has held senior positions in a number of international information providers, working both in the UK and US.

For further information about the DPC and the Digital Preservation Award contact Anna Arthur at Anna Arthur PR on 020 7637 2994 or Emma Wright at Museums, Libraries & Archives Council on 020 7273 1459

Press Release Number One - July 2003

Digital Preservation Coalition and Pilgrim Trust Announce New Digital Preservation Award

The preservation of digital information is a source of great concern and has been the focus of much discussion and research, particularly in recent years. A telling illustration of the fragility of digital media is the BBC Domesday project. Launched to coincide with the 900^th anniversary of the original Domesday project in 1986, the BBC Domesday project fell prey to the inevitable technological obsolescence which affects all digital resources. Researchers were able to retrieve the information but only at the 11^th hour and this rich resource could easily have been lost less than twenty years after it was created while, ironically, the original document still survives.

It is critically important that the varied and complex challenges to preserving digital information are overcome and the DPC Award aims to encourage and highlight creative approaches to furthering the digital preservation agenda. The award is aimed at projects that focus on "born-digital" resources rather than those using technology for preservation or conservation purposes and will be awarded to a project which demonstrates leadership and advancement in the digital preservation arena. Individuals or teams working in the public or private sector are eligible to apply providing the application is supported by the individual(s) or organisation(s) commissioning the work.

Applications for the Digital Preservation Award closed on 30th September 2003. To view the shortlist of entries please click here.

Notes for editors:

Digital Preservation Coalition

The DPC is a consortium of 25 major UK organisations which aims to ensure that digital archiving is kept on the policy agenda. Information about its work can be found at www.dpconline.org. The DPC was launched in February 2002. Full DPC members include the British Library, Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL), the e-Science Core Programme, Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils (JISC), National Archives of Scotland, Online Computer Library Centre(OCLC), , Public Record Office for Northern Ireland (PRONI), Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, The National Archives, and the University of London Computer Centre. Associate members of the DPC include: the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), Central Information Technology Unit for Northern Ireland (CITUNI), Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils(CLRC), National Electronic Library for Health(NELH), National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales , the Natural History Museum, Open University, Publishers Association, Research Libraries Group, Trinity College Library Dublin, UK Data Archive, and the Wellcome Trust Library.

Allied organisations include the National Library of Australia and the National Preservation Office (UK and Ireland).

The Pilgrim Trust

http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk

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