25 September 2018 | 15:30-17:00 Boston | Pechet Room 1, iPRES 2018


Special Notice:

As this event will be the first Digital Preservationists Anonymous held outside of the UK, priority registration is being offered to non-UK members until 19th September 2018. After this date all DPC members are welcome to register for remaining places. 

Summary

Many times what we perceive as an error or failure is actually a gift. And eventually we find that lessons learned from that discouraging experience prove to be of great worth.

Richelle E. Goodrich

DPC Members please login to register.

We all know that the most valuable learning is often made when trying things out in practice and sometimes making mistakes. Sharing that experience in a public forum is, unfortunately, not usually an option however. This event, seeks to provide a safe space to share, discuss and learn at the practical end of digital preservation.

Digital Preservationists Anonymous (DPA) will bring together DPC members (and only DPC members) to share the mistakes made, the pain suffered and the challenges encountered on our digital preservation journeys. We’ll discuss how to learn from those experiences and move forward. This will be a chance to reflect on things that have not gone as well as we liked, to consider the difficult challenges we’ve been attempting to solve, but more importantly it will also be an opportunity to take a positive approach to this work and to find ways to make progress by helping each other.

This event will have some ground rules. Unsurprisingly, the first rule is the Chatham House Rule. The second rule of Digital Preservationists Anonymous is that you must share with the group. All attendees are expected to deliver a 3 minute / 3 slide lightning talk to tell us about a challenge, set back or “failure”. The third rule is: the group will help. After hearing lightning talks from the attendees, we’ll discuss those issues, and work out how to learn from them and solve them.

Digital Preservation Anonymous is a new approach to facilitating knowledge exchange between DPC members, which emerged initially from discussions at Connecting the Bits – our annual members day – and was subsequently developed with help from our members. Our first experiments with this format in 2017 were hugely popular with attendees, and we’re excited to be launching the second in a series of DP Anonymous events in 2018.

Key aims/benefits

  • It's an opportunity to share challenges, set backs, and frustrations but realise that you are not alone
  • We will benefit from understanding and learning from the experiences of others
  • We'll actively work together to find a way forward with our shared problems

House rules

  • Chatham House Rule. What happens at DPA, stays at the DPA.
  • Everyone must participate and must bring along some "pain" to share with the group! Every attendee will be expected to deliver a 3 minute lightning talk.
  • Be positive: focus on how we can move things forward

Outline for the session

  • Introduction to Digital Preservation Anonymous: Paul Wheatley
  • Lightning talks from attendees
  • Group discussion
  • Wrap up:
    • What challenges did we miss? Discuss them briefly.
    • What are the main take-aways for participants?
    • Are there important issues for DPC to take away and address?
    • How did the event go as a whole? Gauge appetite for more. What can we improve for next time?

Registration

Registration is free and open to DPC Members only. Spaces are incredibly limited (max 6 seats) so please register soon to hold your seat.

DPC Members please login to register.


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