DPC

Paul Stokes is Subject Matter Expert (Digital Preservation) at Jisc

Buying a digital preservation system has never been a quick process. They’re expensive (and definitely NOT an unconsidered, impulse buy) which almost inevitably means a full public procurement exercise. Lead times from the initial consideration (”we need to do something about keeping our digital stuff usable”) to the final deployment of a shiny, new system can be of the order of years. A not inconsiderable part of that lead time can be used up in the procurement process; deciding what bells and whistles are actually needed, who needs them, why they’re needed, who can cater to those needs and who or what provides the MEAT (most economically advantageous tender).

The Digital Humanities Research Hub at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, invites submissions for the inaugural Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory conference, to be hosted at the University of London from 2-4 April 2025 in collaboration with colleagues from Aarhus University, the British Library, and the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme at the British Museum.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) has launched an updated version of its Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM) today.

Designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability, DPC RAM is a digital preservation maturity modelling tool which aims to be applicable for organizations of any size in any sector, and for all content of long-term value. It uses existing good practice to offer a model which is easy to understand, quick to apply and is freely available for anyone to use.

We're pleased to announce the release of version 3 of the Digital Preservation Coalition's maturity modelling tool: the Rapid Assessment Model, otherwise known as DPC RAM.

We have been collating feedback from you all since our last RAM revision in 2021, and this has been incredibly useful for alerting us to potential revisions and additions - so thanks very much to everyone who contributed. We've also had a review and expansion of what might broadly be termed ethical issues. But don't panic, we haven't made any drastic changes to the model - we certainly don't want to compromise the potential for analysing maturity over time. Hopefully we have managed to sharpen the existing text, remove ambiguity and ensure RAM encapsulates the latest in digital preservation good practice whilst keeping it quick and easy to use.