In my previous blog post ‘Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright….’ (can we see a theme with the titles?) I touched on some of the reasons why I think it’s important to not only accept diversity and inclusion within the Digital Preservation Community but to actively work to encourage it. Similar themes are picked up and expanded upon in Somaya Langley’s important new post on the DPOC Project Blog ‘The Ethics of Working in Digital Preservation’.
Somaya talks about her own experiences, both good and bad, and how they have led her to the conclusion that only by working together as a respectful, welcoming and inclusive community can we achieve real progress towards our digital preservation goals. No one can do this in isolation and we must invite all kinds of different people to the table.
I could not agree more whole-heartedly, especially with Somaya’s conclusion that we must be proactive and clear about who we want to be as a community. At the end of my blog post I mentioned that at the DPC we were embarking on a piece of work to look at best practice for inclusion, diversity, accessibility and codes of conduct. I’m pleased say this work has been making good progress and a draft proposal for a ‘Digital Preservation Community Charter’ is going out to some key stakeholders for their input and feedback. We hope to develop this further with the wider digital preservation community over the coming weeks.
Keep an eye out for more on that in the near future, but in the meantime make sure to check out Somaya’s blog post.
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