Creating Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation
To create environmentally sustainable digital preservation, Pendergrass, Sampson, Walsh, and Alagna launched an initiative to empower practitioners by providing the intellectual tools they need to integrate environmental sustainability principles into digital preservation practices via a universally-applicable framework. Through a research article, workshop protocol, and education and outreach efforts, they are building a global community of practice that explores adjustments to digital preservation work to achieve significant environmental gains in aggregate. Their efforts address the full life-cycle environmental impacts of digital preservation practice, reducing its contribution tothe climate crisis and helping to ensure continued success in securing our digital legacy.
Spanish Language Webinars Program in sound and audio-visual digital preservation
The Ibero-American Network of Digital Preservation of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (RIPDASA in Spanish), funded by the Ibero-American Program of Science and Technology for Development (CYTED) launched the Spanish Language Webinars Program to offer open access webinars for information science professionals in Ibero-America interested in learning about and updating their knowledge of digital preservation for sound and audiovisual archives. The webinars are offered in Spanish monthly, they are recorded and published for future consultation. In 2019, six webinars were scheduled, about 900 people from 20 Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries participated. During 2020, 8 webinars were scheduled, and as of August 4, around 1400 people from more than 25 countries have attended.
Digital Records Curation Progamme
The Digital Records Curation Programme (DRCP) is a volunteer-led initiative of the International Council on Archives’ Africa Programme aiming to build capacity among African archival educators. It took existing free resources, packaging them into easy to use teaching materials for low-resource environments. The DRCP recognises that digital records are proliferating in organisations, industries and countries not always well-equipped to manage and preserve them, compared to technical know-how developed and used in more highly-resourced contexts. DRCP materials constitute a modular course that can be adapted by lecturers to suit the local working context, delivered ‘as is’ or integrated into existing curricula.
The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation
Published in December of 2018 by Johns Hopkins University Press, The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation has significantly advanced practice and awareness of digital preservation issues. Drawing on years of research and practice, the book synthesizes the history of preservation in a range of areas (archives, manuscripts, recorded sound, etc.) and sets that history in dialogue with work in new media studies, platform studies, and media archaeology. The book then presents an intentional and iterative approach to engaging in digital preservation.