New Year - and New Chair for DPC: Richard Ovenden

The DPC starts the new year with a new chair: Richard Ovenden, Associate Director and Keeper of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford was elected chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) at our AGM in November 2009.

Founded 2001, the DPC is a not-for-profit membership organisation whose primary objective is to raise awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. 

Richard Ovenden is the third chair of the Coalition succeeding Ronald Milne who became Chair in 2006 and Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library who originally chaired the organisation.  

Richard Ovenden said: ‘I’m delighted to take on this role at an exciting time for the Coalition. With thirty members the DPC is a diverse and large coalition, representing a significant cross section of the scientific and cultural organisations in the UK and Ireland. All face the same challenge of ensuring that our digital memory is available for future generations. It makes sense that we all work together to achieve this common goal.  The challenge – and the opportunity – is shared by all of us.’

William Kilbride, Executive Director of the DPC said: ‘Richard has been a Board director for several years and I am very much looking forward to working with him in this new role.’

The DPC is pleased to announce that the Archaeology Data Service at the University of York has become the latest organisation to join the coalition.

'The Archaeology Data service is a national data archive for archaeology and related disciplines in the UK', explained Prof Julian Richards, director of the ADS.  'We are the mandated archive for archaeological data for the AHRC and NERC and work closely with a variety of national agencies such as English Heritage, to ensure the long term preservation and dissemination of digital data. We currently curate more than 250 archives covering thousands of archaeological projects, as well as a wealth of digital library resources.  There is a broad range of data types and several terabytes of data.'

 'The DPC is the lead UK forum for the promotion of digital preservation policy and best practice. We have worked with the DPC before - although our membership was as a constituent of the former Arts and Humanities Data Service. With the demise of AHDS we see the need to be directly involved with developments at a national and cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary level.'

Welcoming the ADS, Richard Ovenden, Chair of the DPC commented 'We're really pleased that the ADS has joined the Coalition. They have been long time supporters and have a great track record of effective action as well as leadership within their community. Participation in our activities and events will be a great benefit to them and will keep them up to date with a fast moving field. But it is also good news for the other 30 members that we'll be able to access their expertise and experience.'

For more about the Archaeology Data Service see http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/

The DPC has comprehensively updated and renewed its website - our first major makeover since being set up in 2001.  The new site allows members to log in and edit content directly, and it uses Web 2.0 technology to draw content from remote sources.  Based on the open source content management system JOOMLA, the new site was built for the DPC by Cybermedia

The DPC, Society of Archivists and CyMAL are pleased to announce the next (and final) stops for the Digital Preservation Roadshow - the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth on 22/1/10) and Glamorgan Archives in Cardiff (15/02/10). For details including programme and registration, see the booking form on the Welsh Assembly Government website.

DPC members have a free priority booking for day one of Digital Preservation the Planets Way in London on 9th Feb (normal price 95 Euros) and a discount for days two and three (DPC price 145 Euros, normally 199Euros). For more details see the attached announcement.

The DPC Leadership programme is offering scholarships to members to attend the Digital Preservation Training Programme in London in March 2010. For more information see the attached announcement about DPC Leadership Programme March 2010

The DPC is pleased to announce the addition of a new report to the DPC Technology Watch Report Series: File Formats for Preservation, written by Malcolm Todd of The National Archives:

The selection and manipulation of file formats has long been seen as an important element within digital preservation strategies, especially data migration.  However there are different and to some extent competing grounds for selection of file formats.  The proliferation of formats, the need to provide long term access to data embedded within files and the role of the file as a container for encoded information create subtle tensions for preservation managers.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) has awarded six scholarships so that members can attend the Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP) in London in October.

‘We wrote to our members in August offering three scholarships that meet the costs of attendance at the next session of the programme’, explained Bruno Longmore, Chair of the DPC.  ‘The judging panel was so impressed by the scale and quality of the response that they asked if we could extend the number of grants available. Given the clear evidence of demand and given how hard it can be to find other sources of support we decided to take the unusual step of funding three additional places.’

The following were selected by a small panel of judges which met to review the unexpectedly large number of applications submitted:

• Joy Ardill of the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland
• Ceri Forster of the Society of Archivists working in the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester
• Polly Parry of the Natural History Museum
• Sarah Philips of RLUK working in Cardiff University
• Anusha Ranganathan of Oxford University Library Service
• Shane Start of the British Library