The deadline is approaching for DPC members to apply for scholarships to attend the Digital Futures Academy in London in March.

The Digital Preservation Coalition is offering four fully-funded scholarships to attend the Digital Futures Academy at the British Library, between the 19th and 23rd March 2012. Led by experts of international renown, Digital Futures focuses on the creation, delivery and preservation of digital resources from cultural and memory institutions. Lasting five days, Digital Futures is aimed at managers and other practitioners from the library, museum, heritage and cultural sectors looking to understand the strategic and management issues of developing digital resources from digitization to delivery. Digital Futures is operated and organised by the King’s College London and normally costs 975 per person. DPC scholarships meet the tuition fees for the course.  The deadline for applications is 1200 on Monday 9th January.

For more details of the scholarships including eligibility and how to apply see the DPC Leadership Programme.

The DPC wishes you a Happy Christmas and New Year. Our offices are closed till the 3rd January and we may not be able to reply to email or phone calls before then. 

DPC is delighted to offer members a preview of our latest Technology Watch Report ‘Preserving Email’, written by Chris Prom of the University of Illinois.
 
DPC Technology Watch Reports identify, delineate, monitor and address topics that have major bearing on ensuring our collected digital memory will be available tomorrow.  They provide an advanced introduction in order to support those charged with ensuring a robust digital memory and they are of general interest to a wide and international audience with interests in computing, information management, collections management and technology.  The reports are commissioned after consultation with members; they are written by experts; and they are thoroughly scrutinised by peers before being released.  The reports are informed, current, concise and balanced and they lower the barriers to participation in digital preservation. The reports are a distinctive and lasting contribution to the dissemination of good practice in digital preservation. ‘Preserving Email’ is the first Technology Watch Report to be published by the DPC in association with Charles Beagrie Ltd. Neil Beagrie, Director of Consultancy at Charles Beagrie Ltd, was commissioned to act as principal investigator and managing editor of the series in 2011.  The managing editor has been further supported by an Editorial Board drawn from DPC members and peer reviewers who have commented on the text prior to release.  The Editorial Board comprises William Kilbride (Chair), Neil Beagrie (Series Editor), Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth), Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin), Andrew McHugh (University of Glasgow), Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library).
 

Following the successful consultation event held in conjunction with the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), The National Archives have now taken the feedback and wrapped it into a wiki at: http://droid7.wikispaces.com

The project team have taken the tweets and feedback from the feedback forms at the event and tried to represent them as requirements. As mentioned on the front page of the wiki this is very much like a wish list and while we can’t promise everything requested will appear in DROID 7 we do hope the resource will guide that development and beyond, so perhaps for minor releases and then potentially DROIDs 8 and 9.

'We’re asking users access the existing pages listing a requirement and place their name as a stakeholder so we can understand the interest in a potential feature,' explained Ross Spencer of the National Archives. 'We’re also asking users to create new requirement pages using the template given to reflect any requirements that we haven’t picked up via the consultation. For users new to wikis we’ve provided a user guide. It is important to remember it is difficult to mess a wiki up as we can always look at change histories and we will be monitoring the wiki to help anyone with corrections.'

'We expect this process will go on until the end of January, but potentially longer depending on the interest in the wiki and how long we have while resourcing the next development. We hope this wiki will provide an initial base to allow DROID users to communicate with us and each other and we hope it will evolve to be used for other future DROID developments. '

Vacancy - Project Officer at London School of Economics

The Library at the London school of Economics (LSE) is seeking to recruit a project officer for the Digital Communications Enhancement Project on a 6-month fixed-term contract Salary : £31,998 to £38,737 p.a. inclusive

The Library is at the heart of LSE, one of the world’s greatest social science universities, and serves a vibrant community of students and staff in the centre of London. An opportunity has arisen for a confident, self-motivated individual to join our busy and dynamic Library Services.

The post holder will be responsible for using their awarensss of current and emerging digital preservation theory and practice to distil key messages for the target audiences of the project and, in collaboration with the in-house design unit, designing and producing training materials. The post holder will also participate in piloting the materials in information literacy training, provided in partnership with experienced Library trainers, and will contribute to documenting the outcomes of the project for the wider JISC and UK/HE community.

To apply for this post please go to the link below. If you need to contact us please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call us on 020 7955 7859 quoting reference 1222073.

https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?SID=amNvZGU9MTIyMjA3MyZ2dF90ZW1wbGF0ZT05Mjgmb3duZXI9NTA0MDczNSZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZicmFuZF9pZD0wJnBvc3RpbmdfY29kZT0yMjQmcmVxc2lnPTEzMjQ0NzA4MjYtZTc2NDk1MDk2Y2RiMmI3MjRiZjc1NzIzYzhhYWYwZDMwZGNkZmU5Zg==

The closing date for the receipt of applications is midnight on 6th January 2012. Interviews are expected to take place on the 17th January 2012

DPC is delighted to welcome the London School of Economics as its newest member.

‘LSE Library has been developing its digital preservation capacity for around two years - since initial planning and making the business case’, explained Ed Fay. ‘We have already made use of the events programme offered by the DPC to train members of our specialist team. Now that our preservation capacity is moving from development to operation we enter a new phase of activity.’

‘Membership of the DPC will provide crucial support as we move from innovation around technology and process to embedding skills and practice throughout the Library groups.’

‘We’re delighted to welcome LSE to the Coalition’, said William Kilbride. ‘We have worked with staff of LSE for some time and they have been strong supporters of our work. Now that they are within the Coalition they will be able to access training and publications directly and will be able to participate in our various working parties. This will help them achieve their own strategic goals but it will also be of benefit to the rest of the Coalition.’

General registration is now open for a DPC briefing day on the topic of ‘Trust and E-journals’ at the Wellcome Library, Euston Road, London on 31st January 2012: http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/39-trust?xref=39

Perhaps the most advanced part of the digital preservation community, the E-Journal sector has growing experience in fixing technical challenges and is supported by a well-developed - if complicated and at times dysfunctional - value chain that connects authors, publishers, sellers, purchasers and consumers. A range of service providers and tools now aim to secure this supply chain with digital preservation. Outsourcing - specifically knowing how to trust services that claim to provide digital preservation - has been one of the key barriers to preservation being adopted more widely so the experience of the E-Journal community is of much wider relevance than just the library and academic community.

If the E-Journal sector has genuinely solved the 'trust question’ then everyone needs to know about it. If it has not, then consideration of the issues will at least enable a more nuanced reflection on how the wider community might want develop trust in the preservation of more esoteric or challenging content types. Therefore, this DPC briefing day will examine: perceptions and procurement of preservation services for E-journals; technical architectures for existing services for preservation of E-journals and what they can tell us; lessons learned, problems solved, experiences to pass on trust - how it is established and maintained; emerging trends for e-journal and e-book preservation Places are limited so early registration is encouraged.  Members are invited to attend for free and have priority registration.  Registration is open to non-members at the cost of £150 per place.

http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/39-trust?xref=39

DPC is inviting members to a briefing day on the topic of ‘Trust and E-journals’ at the Wellcome Library, Euston Road, London on 31^st January 2012: http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/39-trust?xref=39

Perhaps the most advanced part of the digital preservation community, the E-Journal sector has growing experience in fixing technical challenges and is supported by a well-developed - if complicated and at times dysfunctional - value chain that connects authors, publishers, sellers, purchasers and consumers. A range of service providers and tools now aim to secure this supply chain with digital preservation. Outsourcing - specifically knowing how to trust services that claim to provide digital preservation - has been one of the key barriers to preservation being adopted more widely so the experience of the E-Journal community is of much wider relevance than just the library and academic community.

If the E-Journal sector has genuinely solved the 'trust question’ then everyone needs to know about it. If it has not, then consideration of the issues will at least enable a more nuanced reflection on how the wider community might want develop trust in the preservation of more esoteric or challenging content types. Therefore, this DPC briefing day will examine: perceptions and procurement of preservation services for E-journals; technical architectures for existing services for preservation of E-journals and what they can tell us; lessons learned, problems solved, experiences to pass on trust - how it is established and maintained; emerging trends for e-journal and e-book preservation Places are limited so early registration is encouraged.  Members are invited to attend for free and have priority registration.  Registration will open to non-members after the 12^th December and at the cost of £150 per place.

http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/39-trust?xref=39

The DPC is consulting its members and the wider community on the TIMBUS project.  This project builds on and extends existing research and experience in risk management and business continuity management on the one hand, and digital preservation on the other, aligning these complementary approaches.  It is a strategic project co-funded by the European Union and it brings together expertise from across Europe from industry partners, SMEs and research partners. 

In order to focus the project on the practical needs of the community, the project team have asked to consult DPC members, examining the occasions when it is necessary to capture, repeat or replay interdependent processes or systems to make sense of a particular archive, product or data set.   

Interested parties are encouraged to contribute at: https://intel.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_1LWzcs15h0TIiAkor follow up more detail at: http://bit.ly/w2JgO9

The DPC and the Archives and Records Association are pleased to invite students and researchers in archives, records management and librarianship to a half day conference on practical workplace skills in digital preservation.  Hosted by University College London, and organised in partnership with the University of Aberystwyth and the University of Dundee, this mini-conference will bring a select group of leading practitioners together with the next generation of archivists, records managers and ibrarians to discuss the challenges of digital collections management and digital preservation.  In a lively set of presentations and discussions, each of the speakers will be invited to reflect on 'the things I wish I knew before I started' - giving students an advantage in their own career development, and helping those who frame the curriculum a chance to extend their student's readiness for the workplace.

For more details including programme and registration see: http://www.dpconline.org/events/details/38-studentconference?xref=38