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
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, introductory text and a worksheet Version 1 translations: Français - Grille d'évaluation rapide (French) 日本語 - デジタル保存連合 ラピッド・アセスメントモデル (Japanese) Português - Modelo de avaliação rápida (Portuguese)
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...
Member's Lounge Special - DPC RAM
DPC Members are invited to drop-in for one hour of open discussion on the topic of the DPC's Rapid Assessment Model (RAM). If you can, do have a look at the DPC RAM web pages before joining the webinar and have a go at applying the model to your own organisation. This Member's Lounge Special allows members to share experiences about applying the RAM, give feedback on the model and ask questions. If you want to find out more about the background to the DPC RAM and how it was created, do...
Introducing the DPC RAM
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it.” Martin Robb, National Programme Manager, NDA I’ve heard this phrase several times since starting work on a digital preservation project with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority here in the UK. Colleagues at the NDA were very keen that as part of our two year project with them, we found an appropropriate way of measuring where they are now in their digital preservation journey and establishing a clear direction of travel. Maturity...
Level up with DPC RAM
The DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model is a helpful tool for assessing an organization’s maturity with digital preservation. It allows you to consider both where you are currently and where you would like to be, and highlight gaps in your current digital preservation capacity. This resource is designed to help you work out how to address those gaps and move up the levels of RAM. For each of the 11 sections of RAM there are helpful tips, links to useful resources and case studies...
A Greener Film Archive
Janice Chen is Archive Officer at the Asian Film Archive in Singapore Much has been written about the escalating carbon footprint arising from digital consumption and its resulting environmental impact. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the world needs sweeping changes to energy, transportation and other systems to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.[i] The bleak future facing our world and the devastating natural disasters in 2018 that have hit...
A Greener Film Archive
Janice Chen is Archive Officer at the Asian Film Archive in Singapore Much has been written about the escalating carbon footprint arising from digital consumption and its resulting environmental impact. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the world needs sweeping changes to energy, transportation and other systems to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.[i] The bleak future facing our world and the devastating natural disasters in 2018 that have hit...
Career Development Fund Guidelines
Download a PDF copy of the Career Development Fund Application Guidelines Introduction The DPC recognizes the very great need among our members for access to specialist training and professional development opportunities. The DPC Career Development Fund (previously known as the Leadership Programme) was created to offer an ongoing programme of grants so that our members can attend courses, events, or other training and development opportunities that will help them build digital...