Digital Preservation Coalition

Changes to membership 2010-11: a message from the Chair

Dear colleagues,

I'm writing to pass on some news about DPC subscriptions in 2010-11. Our Planning Day in November initiated a wide ranging discussion on the DPC membership.  The DPC Board has now agreed a few changes that we are confident that you will welcome. We plan for them to become effective from August 2010. They aim to make the DPC more flexible, to extend our planning horizons, and to make it easier for us to articulate the benefits of membership.

1. From August, members who are willing to make a three year commitment to the coalition, will get a 10 percent discount in their subscription.  This can be paid in a lump sum or in annual instalments.

2. We will introduce a new class of individual personal membership this year and also aim to establish a new class of membership for archive and library schools in the near future.

3. You'll be aware that subscriptions have not changed since the Coalition was established in 2002.  In the last year we have offered more events than ever before, we have published more papers than ever before, we have engaged more actively in public policy debate than ever before, and we've added a very popular scholarship programme - all with the same staffing complement. The DPC Board agreed that the DPC membership values this level of activity and that we need to sustain it at present levels. In order to ensure this, the Board therefore agreed to increase the baseline subscription for Associate membership by 200 pounds.  It's a modest but necessary increase: in fact, if the three year discount is taken into account, the associate subscription package will be reduced to 1980 levels.

We've also gone some way to spell out the greater benefits that come with full membership, so we hope we might persuade you to consider upgrading to full membership level!

Yours

Richard Ovenden

Chair of the DPC