Nance McGovern is Associate for Digital Preservation Practice and Instruction at Global Archivist LLC and a DPC Fellow
Happy World Digital Preservation Day 2025! The most wonderful day of the year for the digital preservation community. And this year WDPD coincides with iPres – even better.
This year’s topic: “Why Preserve?” is making me nostalgic – conjuring up relevant experiences as a practicing archivist over more than four decades.
First, some examples from my decade as a digital archivist at the U.S. National Archives starting in 1985. I always found the three-part questions for appraising electronic records to be a handy frame:
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Is the content significant? Of historical significance, of evidential value for documenting and preserving the rights of individuals and organizations, of fiduciary value, of research value. It seems quite poignant now that some retention periods were to retain records until the end of the Republic. Committing resources to preserving should involve a rationale for why the content will be retained for the future.
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Is the content able to be preserved? Now or when a suitable preservation strategy might be devised in the future. If the content is significant and does not have a current viable preservation strategy, the content might be retained for a period of time to identify or devise a workable strategy. This aligns with the archival practice of reappraisal that reaffirms or rethinks with additional information the commitment to preserve.
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Is the content able to be made available? Enduring access restrictions or technological constraints might make it impossible or unlikely that the content could ever be made available. Even then, some records might be retained while a workable strategy is sought.
Second, examples as a digital preservation manager from our Digital Preservation Management (DPM) Workshop and related programs since 2003. When asked, individuals who have attended the workshop were often motivated by the need to round out their digital skills and experience to encompass the range of required skills, to develop an understanding of digital preservation management to be able to undertake new or future work assignments, to develop approaches for preserving new or unfamiliar kinds of digital content, or to collaborate more effectively with colleagues who have primary responsibility for digital preservation. Organizations who had one or more staff members attend the workshop to develop the capacity to preserve digital collections they have or will create, to address a mandate for their organization to preserve digital content, to collaborate effectively with partners on digital preservation initiatives, and to contribute to the community’s responsibility to preserve.
For me, it is essential to preserve born digital content that falls within the scope of responsibility for individuals and organizations. If the content is or would be preserved in physical form, it should be preserved in digital form. In some cases, it might not be feasible to preserve some types of content in physical form that transformation to digital form makes possible.
I feel compelled this year to mention a few updates to things I’ve been working on that I hope are helpful when you decide to preserve digital content:
DPM Three-legged Stool and Five Stages model: I’m working on an extension of sorts that will address the need for community infrastructure to fully achieve Stage 5 in a way that aligns with current opportunities and challenges. 2028 will mark the 25th anniversary of the. This year’s theme makes me think that we might need to throw a party to celebrate it! And next year, a nod to Preserving Digital Information (1996), the seminal document for the digital preservation community, would be a festive addition to iPres 2026. More on these later …
Environmental impact and DP: I’ve been working on a lifecycle perspective on the environmental impact of ensuring long-term access to digital content – I decided to share it after iPres this year when I couldn’t quite push it out in a timely way before. Thanks to everyone who provided invaluable feedback for that framework.
Radical Collaboration: I’m working on an update to Radical Collaboration that will incorporate situational leadership as it relates to the DPM Three-legged Stool and consider a new title given the interpretation some people can have of ‘radical’ – in this context it simply means to really collaborate rather than just toss the term around.
DAP Framework: Especially for this year’s topic, distinguishing the roles, responsibilities, and cost models of digital archives (real-time actions) in partnership with digital preservation (over-time actions) contributes to making the case for and developing strategies for engaging in sustainable digital preservation.
Happy WDPD!
Resources:
Digital Archives and Preservation (DAP) Framework: https://www.nancemcgovern.org/DAP-McGovern_FINAL.pdf
Digital Preservation Management (DPM) Workshop: https://dpworkshop.org/
DPM Model – Five Stages and Three-legged Stool: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/spobooks/bbv9812.0001.001/1:11/--digital-libraries-a-vision-for-the-21st-century?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Preserving Digital Information, 1996 report published by a predecessor of CLIR in 1996.
Radical Collaboration in Research Library Issues (RLI) 296, 2018: https://publications.arl.org/rli296/
Situational Leadership in the Beyond the Repository Toolkit (https://osf.io/gejqs/overview)