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Articles
Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation
Digital preservation good practice is not solely about how successfully we preserve the bits and enable access to them, it must also take into account the broader context in which our work sits, and the wider responsibilities we have to society and the environment. Simply put, there is no point in preserving the bits if there is no one left to read and understand them. As a community we must therefore balance risks to the digital content that we hold not only against the financial cost but...
A Hybrid Model for Web Archive Capture
Claire Newing is Web Archivist at The National Archives in the UK 2021 is the year the UK Government Web Archive came of age. On 4 November we celebrated the 25th birthday of our oldest resource - this archived version of the Environment Agency website. Of course it shared its birthday with World Digital Preservation Day 2021 so a double excuse to celebrate.
DPC Rapid Assessment Model: Japanese translation now available!
日本語版が続きます The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to share a Japanese translation of its Rapid Assessment Model (RAM), with thanks to volunteer contributors. Now available as a PDF download in Japanese, the second edition of the DPC RAM is a digital preservation maturity modelling tool that has been designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability. “When we first released DPC RAM just over 2 years ago we had no idea it would be...
Environmentally sustainable digital preservation - moving from theory to practice
In April 2020 we held a webinar on ‘Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation’ (DPC Members login to access the recording). In a follow up blog post, we mentioned we’d be keen to see how ideas raised in this webinar were incorporated into future digital preservation projects and initiatives going forward. Revisiting this topic we intend to explore how a range of digital preservation practitioners are addressing the issue, in particular how considerations around environmental...
Environmentally sustainable digital preservation - moving from theory to practice
In April 2020 we held a webinar on ‘Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation’ (DPC Members login to access the recording). In a follow up blog post, we mentioned we’d be keen to see how ideas raised in this webinar were incorporated into future digital preservation projects and initiatives going forward. Revisiting this topic we intend to explore how a range of digital preservation practitioners are addressing the issue, in particular how considerations around environmental...
Digital Preservation and Climate Change: Provocation to and from COP26
I was privileged to contribute to a panel on the fringes of the COP26 conference in Glasgow this morning convened by the UK National Archives with the title 'Archives Supporting Environmental Sustainability' This short post is the text of my presentation which was the five minute provocation at the start of the session. Ladies and gentlemen it’s a pleasure to be invited to speak to you this morning. I want to thank the organizers at the National Archives for their efforts...
Digital Preservation and Climate Change: Provocation to and from COP26
I was privileged to contribute to a panel on the fringes of the COP26 conference in Glasgow this morning convened by the UK National Archives with the title 'Archives Supporting Environmental Sustainability' This short post is the text of my presentation which was the five minute provocation at the start of the session. Ladies and gentlemen it’s a pleasure to be invited to speak to you this morning. I want to thank the organizers at the National Archives for their efforts...
Leaning on community resources to build audiovisual transfer capacity at the Borthwick
Mark Simon Haydn is the Digital Preservation Archivist at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York In keeping with other reports from the field on the DPC blog, the last twelve months at the Borthwick have deeply involved increased supply and demand of digital collection material. In addition to daily reprographics work performed by the Institute’s searchroom team, there has been great progress with the delivery of grant projects: from significant Music Preserved...
Considerations on the barriers to the practice of digital preservation
Amarílis Corrêa is an Academic Librarian and Researcher on digital preservation in São Paulo, Brazil / Amarílis Corrêa, Bibliotecária acadêmica e pesquisadora em preservação digital [PORTUGUESE FOLLOWS] For some of us, there seems to be no barriers to digital preservation; for others, too many. Is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence? For me it is, considering I haven’t had the opportunity to implement any part of the digital preservation process...
Considerations on the barriers to the practice of digital preservation
Amarílis Corrêa is an Academic Librarian and Researcher on digital preservation in São Paulo, Brazil / Amarílis Corrêa, Bibliotecária acadêmica e pesquisadora em preservação digital [PORTUGUESE FOLLOWS] For some of us, there seems to be no barriers to digital preservation; for others, too many. Is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence? For me it is, considering I haven’t had the opportunity to implement any part of the digital preservation process...
Lloyds Banking Group: The Dark Horse goes Digital
Peter Judge is Archivist for the Lloyds Banking Group Archives & Museum Prior to 2020 at Lloyds Banking Group Archives we had been making plans to digitise parts of our collections. Then, like so many other organisations, we found ourselves in a situation where lockdown restrictions were limiting our access to the archives. Given how much of our work is tied to a physical space, this added extra impetus to our plans for digitisation.
Lloyds Banking Group: The Dark Horse goes Digital
Peter Judge is Archivist for the Lloyds Banking Group Archives & Museum Prior to 2020 at Lloyds Banking Group Archives we had been making plans to digitise parts of our collections. Then, like so many other organisations, we found ourselves in a situation where lockdown restrictions were limiting our access to the archives. Given how much of our work is tied to a physical space, this added extra impetus to our plans for digitisation.
Audiovisual Preservation at Wellcome Collection
Christy Henshaw is Digital Production Manager at Wellcome Collection in London Wellcome Collection, like many archives, has a tape problem. Video or audio, good condition or bad, tape archives present a major challenge for preservation and access. We hold hundreds of unique and distinctive works on tape formats, and regularly acquire more through our acquisition programme.
3D scanning and virtual reality environments at the University of Bristol.
Emma Hancox is Digital Archivist at the University of Bristol. As well as digitising two dimensional materials, at the University of Bristol we have been experimenting with three-dimensional scanning methods. We are actively engaged in digital preservation and the creation of 3D scans creates its own set of challenges. In terms of access, we have started working on ways of increasing interaction with the 3D models we create breaking down barriers, giving our collections a wider reach and...
Isolated Together: Virtual Collaboration for the Advancement of Open Source Digital Preservation Tools
Charlotte Armstrong is Project officer for the Open Preservation Foundation In 2020, amid a global pandemic that isolated many people from their professional communities, the Open Preservation Foundation (OPF)’s Spring Hackathon brought together an international group of contributors to enhance open source digital preservation tools and documentation relied on by digital preservation practitioners around the world.
Isolated Together: Virtual Collaboration for the Advancement of Open Source Digital Preservation Tools
Charlotte Armstrong is Project officer for the Open Preservation Foundation In 2020, amid a global pandemic that isolated many people from their professional communities, the Open Preservation Foundation (OPF)’s Spring Hackathon brought together an international group of contributors to enhance open source digital preservation tools and documentation relied on by digital preservation practitioners around the world.
Long-term sustainability: what does it REALLY mean for your digital content?
Jon Tilbury is Chief Innovation Officer at Preservica Institutions and individuals working in Digital Preservation are rightly concerned about the long-term sustainability of the technology or service providers they trust to look after their material. However, the meaning of “sustainability” is much broader than often appreciated.
Long-term sustainability: what does it REALLY mean for your digital content?
Jon Tilbury is Chief Innovation Officer at Preservica Institutions and individuals working in Digital Preservation are rightly concerned about the long-term sustainability of the technology or service providers they trust to look after their material. However, the meaning of “sustainability” is much broader than often appreciated.
Keeping it FAIR: Providing Access to Reusable Data at the Archaeology Data Service
Olivia Foster is Digital Archives Officer at the Archaeology Data Service in York, UK Staff at the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) have been busy over the last year archiving the data deposited with us, collaborating with partners and rolling out the new OASIS online archaeological reporting system. Digital preservation is one of the core activities of the ADS and as a digital archive we preserve and make publicly accessible archaeological and heritage data in our archives and the ADS...
Evolving File Format Identification, Migration, and Management for Preservation through Tool Development
Tom J. Smyth (Manager, Digital Preservation) and Maxime Champagne (Digital Preservation Repository Supervisor), Library and Archives Canada Early this year, it became a priority for LAC’s Digital Preservation unit to reconsider the context of (and affect a major update to) our policy statement on the file formats we accept for transfer of digital library and archival documentary heritage. In the course of examining the existing documents, a few issues arose for discussion among the...