Lisa Lawlis is an Assistant Archivist at Western Libraries and Rachel MacGregor is the Digital Preservation Officer at Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.
One of the best parts of being DPC Members is connecting with other professionals who have similar digital preservation challenges. We met during the Reappraising Appraisal event (https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/360/-/-) in September 2024 and discussed how we both needed a resource for staff to triage born digital record donations.
We both thought that the process of donors approaching our institutions with born digital donation felt like we were starting from scratch every time.
To help mitigate questions from staff and donors about “what do I have to know to donate digital materials?” during the donation inquiry process, we have put together a guide to help steer conversations to gather the information needed for processing and preservation planning.
The guide is not comprehensive and not intended as an appraisal tool. Our hope is the guide helps navigate conversations between donors and staff to ensure the technical information is gathered in one location to support appraisal, processing and preservation questions after digital records have been transferred to an archive or institution. We hope that this guide stops the feeling of restarting or starting from scratch every time a digital record donation inquiry comes in.
We are excited to share the Pre-Appraisal Guide for Staff and Donors, which can be found here or Depositing Your Digital Content.
If you have any feedback, comments, or questions please feel free to email Rachel (rachel.macgregor@warwick.ac.uk) or Lisa (llawlis@uwo.ca). We would be happy to chat about the guide!