Issues
Browse the Knowledge Base by a cross section of legal, organisational and technical issues such as File Format Obsolescence, Procurement or Metadata.
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Articles
Member preview of new ‘Data Type’ Technology Watch Guidance Note Series
The DPC has released the first four of a brand-new series of Data Type Technology Watch Guidance Notes for Member preview today. The topics covered in the set are documents, email, spreadsheets and databases. Each of the Guidance Notes in the Data Type series is designed to provide a primer on the current state of community knowledge about types of data commonly encountered by those seeking to preserve digital holdings.
5 tips to rock the RAM
Kimberley Harsley is an Archivist at the Natwest Group. The introduction of the DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model (RAM) in 2019 came at a perfect time for me. Still reasonably new to NatWest Group Archives, it was a great opportunity for me to learn more about our digital preservation work whilst contributing to it. This month, I revisited the RAM to assess how far we’ve come since then. I found it much easier the second time around as I was more familiar with the content and the archive itself....
EPISODE 6: Digital Preservation Futures with Preservica
This series of webinars will showcase the product and service offerings of each of our DPC Supporters in turn, before the DPC staff invite speakers to respond on a series of themes which represent our understanding of member interests.
EPISODE 4: Digital Preservation Futures with AVP
This series of webinars will showcase the product and service offerings of each of our DPC Supporters in turn, before the DPC staff invite speakers to respond on a series of themes which represent our understanding of member interests.
EPISODE 3: Digital Preservation Futures with Artefactual
This series of webinars will showcase the product and service offerings of each of our DPC Supporters in turn, before the DPC staff invite speakers to respond on a series of themes which represent our understanding of member interests.
EPISODE 2: Digital Preservation Futures with Arkivum
This series of webinars will showcase the product and service offerings of each of our DPC Supporters in turn, before the DPC staff invite speakers to respond on a series of themes which represent our understanding of member interests.
EPISODE 1: Digital Preservation Futures with LIBNOVA
This series of webinars will showcase the product and service offerings of each of our DPC Supporters in turn, before the DPC staff invite speakers to respond on a series of themes which represent our understanding of member interests.
Digital Preservation Workflows Webinar Series and COW-a-thon event
Recordings of Workflows Webinar Series (DPC Members please login to view) 20th April, 1300 - 1430 (UK) Episode 1: Preparations and ingest Business planning with Jaye Weatherburn, University of Melbourne Pre-ingest checks and ingest preparation for digital legal deposit material with Roxana Maurer, Bibliotheque nationale du Luxembourg Ingest to Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) with Fabi Barticioti, LSE Library 22nd April, 1300 - 1430 (UK) Episode...
DPC RAM (version 2) - what has changed and why?
This week, version 2 of DPC RAM, our Rapid Assessment Model was launched (including a new DPC RAM logo courtesy of Sharon McMeekin). This blog post describes what has changed and why. When DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model was first launched in September 2019 we were aware that future revisions would be required to keep it up-to-date. In an evolving field like digital preservation, good practice develops over time and the models by which we measure ourselves should also change...
DPC RAM (version 2) - what has changed and why?
This week, version 2 of DPC RAM, our Rapid Assessment Model was launched (including a new DPC RAM logo courtesy of Sharon McMeekin). This blog post describes what has changed and why. When DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model was first launched in September 2019 we were aware that future revisions would be required to keep it up-to-date. In an evolving field like digital preservation, good practice develops over time and the models by which we measure ourselves should also change...
Previous Versions of DPC RAM
Previous versions of DPC Rapid Assessment Model are available below: Version 1 Version 1 (2019) - The DPC Rapid Assessment Model - the full model and worksheet The first version of DPC RAM was officially launched in September 2019 in the Lightning Talks session of the iPRES conference in Amsterdam and with the following blog post: Introducing the DPC RAM Version 1 translations: Français - Grille d'évaluation rapide (French) 日本語 - デジタル保存連合...
It’s not easy being green: Evaluating the impact of digital preservation
Elisabeth Thurlow is the Digital Preservation & Access Manager at the University of the Arts London. As we challenge the long-held myth of neutrality within libraries, museums and archives, and diversify our collections, how do we avoid making decisions in support of digital preservation, which risk reinforcing historic biases? How do we select and prioritise our preservation actions whilst ensuring we are not duplicating existing biases? As well as the potential social impact of...
DPC RAM Webinar
Having a clear idea of the current state of your digital preservation capabilities can greatly aid how you plan to enhance your capacity and operations. The DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model (RAM) is a digital preservation maturity modelling tool that has been designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organisation’s digital preservation capability. The DPC invites everyone interested in benchmarking their digital preservation capabilities to attend this webinar, which will include an...
Is digital preservation bad for the environment? Reflections on environmentally sustainable digital preservation in the cloud
Matthew Addis is the Chief Technology Officer at Arkivum. Concerns are frequently raised that the way that humanity generates and uses data is simply not environmentally sustainable and is a significant contributor to greenhouse emissions and climate change. Archives and other organisations who hold and provide access to digital content are justifiably concerned about the part they play and how they can be more environmentally sustainable.
Digital Preservation Procurement Toolkit v2.0
Use this to help deliver a successful procurement of third party digital preservation services or infrastructure This Toolkit does not aim to provide a guide to procurement itself, but instead to provide advice on how to get the best result possible out of a procurement process with a minimum of pain. It has been designed primarily for DPC Members who are procuring services, but it will also provide benefits to DPC Supporters by improving communication, clarity and efficiency throughout a...
Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation: some thoughts
On Friday last week the DPC hosted a webinar on ‘Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation’. We were delighted to be able to get all four authors of a recent article in American Archivist in the (virtual) room together with our Members to discuss this important topic. The article is available here and I’d urge digital preservation people everywhere to read it if you haven’t already. I joked within the webinar last week that I wished I’d written it myself...but I should also note that...
Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation: some thoughts
On Friday last week the DPC hosted a webinar on ‘Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation’. We were delighted to be able to get all four authors of a recent article in American Archivist in the (virtual) room together with our Members to discuss this important topic. The article is available here and I’d urge digital preservation people everywhere to read it if you haven’t already. I joked within the webinar last week that I wished I’d written it myself...but I should also note that...
Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation - Webinar
The cultural heritage community has engaged with environmental sustainability in many areas, but is only beginning to explore the sustainability concerns of digital preservation activities. Building off of a recent American Archivist article (“Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation”), in which the authors argue that truly sustainable practice will come only from critical examination of the underlying motivations and assumptions of current digital preservation practices, the...
Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation - Webinar
The cultural heritage community has engaged with environmental sustainability in many areas, but is only beginning to explore the sustainability concerns of digital preservation activities. Building off of a recent American Archivist article (“Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation”), in which the authors argue that truly sustainable practice will come only from critical examination of the underlying motivations and assumptions of current digital preservation practices, the...
From ‘starting digital preservation’ to ‘business as usual’
Anna McNally is Senior Archivist at University of Westminster in the UK The University of Westminster’s Records and Archives team manage the institutional records of the University (founded in 1838), alongside the deposited records of several architects and town planners, and a garment collection (the Westminster Menswear Archive). We started actively managing digital records in 2016 but, in a relatively fast-paced area (compared with paper records!), it’s hard not to always think...