DPC Members Forum and Networking Event - Europe

Sherry Takudo from the World Bank Group attended last year's DPC Forum and Networking Event in The Hague. She says:

“The two-day event was a great opportunity to meet people, exchange ideas, and explore solutions. The atmosphere was welcoming and energizing, and the regional opportunity made it easy to join in person and to share common experiences. I gained insights and tips for future consultations. The thoughtful redesign of the library's conference venue, which we also learned about and appreciated, evidently assisted our open interaction.” 

09:30 – 10:00

Registration open, refreshments served

Please come early to meet your fellow delegates

10:00 – 10:30

A welcome from our hosts at Historic Environment Scotland (HES)**

Andrew Nicoll, Head of Archives and Libraries at HES

10:30 – 11:15

From Browne Issue to Born Digital: Making the Case for Archives in a Digital Scotland**

Jane Milne, Director of Customer Service Operations and Archives at National Records of Scotland (NRS) and Deputy Registrar General for Scotland

11:15 – 11:30

Break

11:30 – 12:00

The Digital Preservation Toolkit for Community Archives - From a 1 year project to a Global Resource**

Karyn Williamson, Digital Preservation Coalition

Since its launch on World Digital Preservation Day 2024, the Digital Preservation Toolkit for Community Archives has grown far beyond its original scope, evolving into a resource with global reach. This session reflects on what a difference a year can make — sharing key developments, lessons learned, and the introduction of the Global Toolkit Ambassador pilot.

It will also explore how the toolkit supports community groups taking their first steps in digital preservation, and how you can get involved in shaping and extending its impact.

12:00 – 12:15

Morning wrap-up and discussion 

12:15 – 13:30

Lunch and networking

13:30 – 15:30

Refreshments available midway

Continuous Improvement Workshops:

Advocating for Digital Preservation
Angela Puggioni, Digital Preservation Coalition

This session introduces participants to the fundamentals of advocacy and communication in the context of digital preservation, helping them understand key concepts, stakeholder needs and how to craft a few key messages to help them drive change in challenging contexts. Through some short exercises and real‑world examples, attendees will analyze their audiences, identify motivators and develop compelling elevator pitches.

or

DPC Competency Audit Toolkit (CAT)

Amy Currie, Digital Preservation Coalition

This workshop will begin by providing attendees with an understanding of the importance and benefits of a continuous improvement approach to benchmarking their digital preservation capabilities. Following this, attendees will be provided with an introduction to the Competency Framework, before being guided through a practical exercise allowing them to audit their own digital preservation skills using DPC CAT. The workshop will finish with an overview of other DPC resources that can help practitioners with planning and advocating for their digital preservation activities.

15:30 - 15:45 

Regroup and recap

16:00 – 17:00

Professional tour of Historic Environment Scotland

09:15 – 10:00

Registration open, tea and coffee provided

Networking with fellow DPC Members

10:00 - 10:15

Welcome and introduction to the DPC Members Forum

Confirmation of morning programming

10:15 –10:50

NLN DPS – A domain agnostic approach to Digital Preservation

Johannes Karlsen and Sandra Kråkstad, National Library of Norway

In 2023, the National Library of Norway established the first version of its in house Digital Preservation Services (DPS), a machine to machine platform for ingestion, preservation, and dissemination of digital materials. The system currently manages 15 million digital objects (11 PB), ingesting around 5,000 objects daily across a wide range of media types. Developed rapidly to support a new bit repository, the initial DPS provided limited metadata functionality.
Following a 2025 pilot exploring DPS use within the wider LAM sector, a new generation of the system was developed and launched in January 2026. The new DPS introduces standardized information packages (E ARK), API based communication, file identification and technical metadata extraction, expanded metadata support, strengthened governance and security, and access for external users. This presentation introduces the new ingest workflow and shares lessons learned.

Session type: Share

The British Archive for Contemporary Writing in Digital Wonderland: Eat me! Drink me! Preserve Me!- Creating sustainable workflows and identifying priorities in a contemporary literary archive
Helen Busby, Archives Manager and digital preservation novice, University of East Anglia Archives & The British Archive for Contemporary Writing

Being new to digital preservation is like falling down a rabbit hole. I will take you on a journey through the wild opportunities, terrifying challenges and frequent pitfalls of embarking on digital preservation as experienced by a new professional in a contemporary literary archive. I will ask my participants to help me find a path through this disorientating and confusing land of opportunity where everything is possible, but nothing is ever simple.

Session type: Learn/Share

10:50-11:00

Break: Time to move into groups

11:00-11:40

Developing Skills for digital access
Helen Dafter, The Postal Museum

This session will explain the documentation and guidance which was produced to support The Postal Museum’s Digital Collections Portal launch.

It will consider what supporting information was provided to the public and how this was signposted. It will also discuss how museum staff were equipped to deal with questions relating to the Portal.

Session type: Share

Retention disposition vs large-scale appraisal: where to place the burden for preserving records in Sharepoint (and other M365 products)
Sara Day Thomson, Digital Archivist at the University of Edinburgh

A cross-departmental group of stakeholders at the University of Edinburgh is currently evaluating potential solutions to support the transfer of records from Sharepoint (and other M365 services) to the University Archives. The digital preservation community has been incredibly generous in sharing their experiences and approaches. Through emails and conversations, one common theme has emerged that has serious implications for the route we end up taking. Institutions (especially government or highly regulated ones) with well-established records management have been able to leverage retention policies to reduce the burden on ingest and appraisal experienced by institutions taking 'Sharepoint dumps'.
My inclination is to batter on with trying to encourage colleagues to apply retention to their records before transferring anything to the Archives. But this could be risky in a highly devolved environment, leading to a lack of engagement and delay or failure to transfer *anything* from Sharepoint to the Archives. It would be very useful to discuss this challenge with other DPC members and perhaps even carve out a middle ground.
Session type: Discuss

11:40 – 11:50

Break: Time to move into groups

11:50 – 12:30

Preserving born-digital and obsolete media: workflows and lessons from a “Digital Graveyard” project

Ailie O’Hagan, Queen’s University Belfast

This year, Queen’s University lifted the lid on preserving born-digital collections and obsolete media. In this session I will share what we unearthed in the archives, and the basic forensic workflows we developed for accepting and transferring born-digital materials (feedback welcome!) 

I will also show the “Digital Graveyard” exhibit that emerged from our collaborative effort to excavate obsolete media–including a bonus game! 

Session type: Share / Play

Valerie McCutcheon, University of Glasgow

Digital Preservation and Research Data Management are intrinsically linked. There can be varying degrees of integration of services and support. Can we compare the Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM) - Digital Preservation Coalition with a FAIR Assessment model?

I will start by asking the group if there is a ‘best’ equivalent for FAIR in the sector that we can use as a starting point and intend to update this entry, before moving on to play bingo with the DPC RAM direct to the FAIR principles. Most alternatives to FAIR seem to be models for assessing individual records rather than the institutional position or are rather technically detailed like some DCC and RDA models. This model might be a useful starting place for FAIR if there are no other suggestions workbook for the RPOs.

Session type: Discuss

Break for lunch

13:30-14:30

Recap of afternoon programming

Plenary session

Key challenges arising – open/interactive session for members to select a topic and discuss.

Break: Time to move into groups

From Basement to Citizen: an Integrated Approach for the Digitisation, Preservation and Access to Environmental Permits in Flanders
Sofie Ruysseveldt, The Agency for Facility Operations of the Flemish Government / Digital Archives Flanders

Local authorities in Flanders manage extensive collections of environmental permit files with
long term legal, administrative and societal value. Traditionally held in analogue form, these records have been difficult to access, limiting transparency and placing a growing burden on public services facing increasingly complex regulations.
This session will share an integrated approach to large scale digitisation, preservation and access to environmental permit files developed within the City Hall of the Future project. The model combines shared governance, standardised digitisation workflows and OAIS compliant long term preservation within the Digital Archives Flanders E depot. A key feature is the API based integration between archival repositories and operational permit systems, enabling “archiving by design” and reuse of preserved information through public service platforms such as the Woningpas. The approach demonstrates how coordinated digital preservation strategies can improve scalability, transparency and public service delivery.
Session type: Share

Working with Travan tapes: a case study from the Dorothy Dunnett archive (In-person)
Jamie McIntosh, National Library of Scotland

Dunnett, held in the archive and manuscript collections at the National Library of Scotland. Dorothy Dunnett was an early adopter of technology in her literary career, and her archive contains 8” floppy discs, 5.25” floppy discs, 3.5” floppy discs, and Travan tapes, all holding data relating to her publishing activities.

This session will provide details about how we’ve managed to access and preserve data from the tapes and will seek input from the audience on best practice and improvements. The session will foreground the use of Travan tapes as a storage medium outwith business use and will seek to ask questions about how the creator might have intended to use the tapes. As is usually the case with born-digital media in archival collections, the data on the tapes was not always as advertised on the label. This raises important questions around approaches to archival acquisition and appraisal, and input and discussion from the audience would be very welcome on this.

Break: Time to move into groups

Strategies for building preservation-minded relationships (In-person)
Alice Austin, Web Archivist at University of Edinburgh

raised when a website is about to be retired. We’ve been working with colleagues in other teams to examine how the teams across the University track, monitor and manage the web estate so that we can more effectively and efficiently capture sites for preservation. This has led to some interesting conversations about what role web content plays in the University’s wider comms strategy, how digital preservation can support this work, and where decisions (and actions) need to happen in order to improve the overall health of the web estate.

We’re happy to share a bit about what we’ve done, and we’re also curious about how/where other folk might be doing similar work to get preservation on the docket early in the conversation, and what strategies have emerged for building and managing these relationships.

Session type: Discuss/Share

Reading Club - NDSA Environmental Sustainability Guide
Jenny Mitcham, DPC

structured yet informal forum to engage with recent publications and reflect collectively on their relevance to current practice.

This session focuses on the newly published NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation Environmental Sustainability Guide. Participants are encouraged to read the guide in advance and take part in a facilitated, small-group discussion exploring key insights, points of surprise or disagreement, and the implications for individual and organisational practice. The session will also consider opportunities for collective action and the role of the community in supporting environmentally sustainable digital preservation, while contributing to participants’ ongoing professional development.

Wrap-up and close