Blog

Helen Dafter is Archivist at The Postal Museum in the UK

The Postal Museum recently reached a significant step in its digital preservation journey, with the purchase of Preservica. I am celebrating this achievement, and thinking about what we need to do next to get it fully up and running. We wouldn’t have been able to reach this stage without the support and cooperation of many others along the way.

This blog was written by Claire Newing, Web Archivist at The National Archives (UK), Patricia Falcão, Time-Based Media Conservator at Tate, Sarah Haylett, Archives and Records Management Researcher at Tate and Jane Kennedy, Records Manager at Tate

In 2023 - and for the first time in either of our histories of collaborative practice - Tate approached The National Archives about supplying the first in-house captured microsite to the UK Government Web Archive. This was a near reversal of the usual process, by which the TNA regularly captures Tate’s website as part of their collecting remit to “archive central government information published on the web”.

Eve Wright is a Digital Archivist at National Records of Scotland

At National Records of Scotland, our current approach to digital preservation is to look outwards. We take small incremental steps to improve our preservation activities gradually, so we are continually dependent upon (and grateful to!) to our colleagues, who make open source digital preservation options available.

One challenge we have recently faced was how we could implement a regular process of integrity checking without any system automation. Our Digital Repository is file system based so there would need to be some kind of tool to look through digital objects and compare checksums against what we produced during ingest.

Barbara Sierman is a Digital Preservation Consultant and a DPC Fellow

Imagine digital preservation as a concerted effort and all digital preservationists worldwide as an orchestra playing one big symphony about digital preservation. This is the theme of the WDPD2023, but is it true? I have my doubts, as there is no conductor for the orchestra and no “Great Plan”, but OK, there are sure some good examples of concerted efforts in dedicated projects.

Lieve Baetens is Student Cultural Heritage/Former intern selection and preservation immersive media at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Heritage. She interned at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision where she researched strategies for the selection and preservation of immersive media.

During my internship at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision I conducted the research titled “Collaboratively Moving Forward: Exploring Strategies for the Selection and Preservation of Immersive Media in Cultural Heritage Institutions”.^[1] As the name suggests, the research emphasizes the importance of institutional collaboration for selecting and preserving immersive works.

As part of the research, I interviewed fourteen experts in the field from ten institutions in total. I was very pleasantly surprised about how willing everyone was to contribute to the research. From listening to the interviews with these experts on one of my favorite podcasts called “Art & Obsolescence” hosted by Cass Fino-Radin, to being able to meet these experts and talk with them about immersive media made me very happy. As a young professional it was wonderful to experience how welcoming the digital preservation community is. It made me realize that digital preservation truly is a concerted effort.

Corinne Frappart is Digital Archivist at the Publications Office of the EU

Introduction

As we recently celebrated World Digital Preservation Day (WDPD) in 2023, we find ourselves standing at the crossroads of history in the field of digital preservation, tasked with the challenge of safeguarding the ever-increasing number of digital artifacts that define our past, inform our present, and shape our future.

The theme for this year's WDPD, "Digital Preservation: A Concerted Effort," underscored the collaborative nature of the digital preservation community's mission. One of the most emblematic examples of this collaboration is the development of open-source software. In this blog post, I will delve into the specific case of the long-term preservation open-source software RODA, and the impact of its use by public administrations leading to improvements that benefit the digital preservation community at large.

Daniel Greenberg is Director of Product Management at Ex Libris, part of Clarivate

The challenges of digital preservation are constantly evolving. New file formats emerge, old ones become obsolete, and the quest to ensure the longevity of digital assets never ceases.

In this changing landscape, one principle remains constant at Ex Libris, part of Clarivate: the power of community-led development. This credo is more than just a philosophy; it's the core of our digital preservation efforts. For us, working with the community is the only way to guarantee a real-life, use-case-oriented system.

Emily Clarke is Digitisation Lead at Monash University Library. She attended the iPRES 2023 Conference with support from the DPC Career Development Fund, which is funded by DPC Supporters.

As a first-time attendee to iPRES, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I don’t have a background in the technical aspects of digital preservation. I am not a digital preservationist. What was waiting for me in Champaign, Illinois? My concerns that I would be overwhelmed by technical jargon, foreign concepts, and subtle specificity were not to be met. In this blog, I reflect on some of what I learned from the iPRES 2023 conference, particularly how it connects to this year’s WDPD theme of ‘A Concerted Effort’: The importance of a holistic view of digital preservation, and what are we actually doing it for?

This blog was written by Tara Majoor and Allison Graycon at Museums of History New South Wales

Museums of History NSW manages and preserves the State Archives Collection for the State of New South Wales, Australia, as well as place-based collections of objects and materials associated with our portfolio of historic houses and the Caroline Simpson Collection of publications, objects and materials related to homes, gardens and domestic life in Australia.

This blog was written by Linda Shave for the Records and Information Management Practitioners Alliance (RIMPA)

Australia like many countries around the world is struggling with the rise of a data rich metaverse world, the rise of Quantum information processing and navigating the pitfalls of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation.  Traditional approaches for identifying digital archives for digital preservation are not necessarily agile in today’s world.  Traditional approaches are not designed for ploughing through the metaverse nor in identifying what is the truth or not the truth.  Our future depends on a universal concerted effort to find a way forward in collecting, archiving and preserving digital assets now and into the future or we could risk entering a digital dark age.