Nathan Tallman is Executive Director at APTrust
Academic Preservation Trust (APTrust), a member of the Digital Preservation Coalition, has released the production version of DART 3, a major update to its Digital Archivist's Resource Tool. While DART was originally built to serve APTrust's own member institutions, it has been free and open source since its earliest versions and is now used by archivists and digital preservation practitioners at institutions well outside the APTrust consortium. This post introduces DART to those who may not be familiar with it and outlines the changes in the new release.
Image by courtesy of Nathan Tallman (APTrust)
What DART Is
DART is a desktop application that helps non-technical users package digital content into BagIt-compliant preservation packages and transfer those packages to a remote storage or repository system. It offers a drag-and-drop interface for staff who need to prepare content for long-term preservation without writing code, as well as more advanced options for those who want them. Because it can be pointed at S3 and SFTP endpoints, DART is not tied to any single repository or vendor; institutions use it to package and ship content to whatever storage environment they have chosen, APTrust or otherwise.
For larger or repeated packaging efforts, DART supports batch jobs defined in a CSV spreadsheet, letting an institution describe many items at once, their bag names, source directories, and required metadata tags, and then run them all through the same workflow in a single pass. And while DART itself runs as a graphical application rather than from the command line, it is built on top of DART Runner, a companion command-line tool that can carry out the same workflows and batch files unattended. This gives institutions with development capacity a path to define a packaging workflow in DART, then script and automate it as part of a larger ingest pipeline.
A Complete Rewrite
DART 3 replaces the Electron and JavaScript foundation of DART 2 with a Go rewrite using the Wails framework. Most users will not notice this change directly, but it brings a simpler installation process, better application performance, and a codebase built for easier long-term maintenance. This kind of underlying investment matters for a tool the sector has come to depend on; a faster, more maintainable DART benefits every institution that uses it, not only APTrust members.
New Capabilities
DART 3 adds several features that users across the community have requested:
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Upload-only jobs. Institutions can now upload bags or files that were already packaged by another tool, or ship supporting files outside a standard preservation workflow, without first repackaging them through DART.
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New output formats. DART can create, validate, and upload tarred, gzipped bags (.tar.gz or .tgz), as well as loose, uncompressed, and untarred bags, expanding the packaging options to fit different local requirements.
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S3 download. Users can browse configured S3 buckets and download files directly from within DART, including large files up to 50 TB.
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Artifact saving. The artifacts screen allows tag files, manifests, and other bag components to be saved directly to disk, making it easier to keep records of packaging activity independent of the bag itself.
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Settings import from DART 2. Institutions migrating from the previous version can carry over their configured storage services, BagIt profiles, and other settings rather than starting from scratch.
The release also includes a set of smaller improvements: storage credentials now display as masked password fields with an option to reveal them; external dashboard links open correctly in the system browser and DART now handles very large bags of 100,000 or more files by packaging, validating, and uploading them without interruption.
Why This Matters Beyond APTrust
Many institutions in the digital preservation community, particularly smaller archives, libraries, and cultural heritage organizations, lack dedicated engineering staff to build custom ingest tooling. DART was created to close that gap, and it remains free to download and use regardless of institutional affiliation. The improvements in DART 3, from simpler installation to support for a wider range of bag formats and storage targets, are aimed at making preservation packaging accessible to as broad a range of practitioners as possible.
A Note on Stewardship
DART 3.0 is the last major release for which Andrew Diamond served as primary developer. Andrew created DART and has led its development since the tool's inception, and he is transitioning to a smaller role. Melissa Iori, APTrust's Lead Developer, contributed to the 3.0 release and will coordinate DART development and maintenance going forward. APTrust continues to welcome contributions from the broader open source community, and institutions with development capacity are encouraged to get involved.
Getting Started
DART 3 is available for Mac (Apple silicon-based), Windows, and Linux, with full documentation at aptrust.github.io/dart-docs/dart3. Institutions still running DART 2 can migrate using the built-in settings import feature. APTrust also hosts a DART User Group, a mailing list open to the entire digital preservation community, where practitioners can share experiences, ask questions, and support one another as they adopt the tool.
Digital preservation infrastructure works best when it is shared. Whether or not an institution is affiliated with APTrust, DART contributes to the broader effort to make preservation practice more accessible, and the community's use, feedback, and code contributions are what keep it improving.