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The 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species

The DPC's 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species is a crowd-sourcing exercise to discover which digital materials our community thinks are most at risk, as well as those which are relatively safe thanks to digital preservation. By compiling and maintaining this list over the coming years, the DPC aims to celebrate great digital preservation endeavors as entries become less of a ‘concern,’ whilst still highlighting the need for efforts to safeguard those still considered ‘critically endangered.’  

A new edition of the Bit List will be published on World Digital Preservation Day, 7th November 2019.

  • LOWER RISK 

    Lower Risk small

    Digital materials are listed as Lower Risk when it does not meet the requirements for other categories but where there is a distinct preservation requirement.  Failure or removal of the preservation function would result in re-classification to one of the threatened categories.

  • VULNERABLE 

    Vulnerable small

    Digital materials are listed as Vulnerable when the technical challenges to preservation are modest but responsibility for care is poorly understood, or where the responsible agencies are not meeting preservation needs. This classification includes Lower Risk materials in the presence of aggravating conditions.

  • ENDANGERED 

    Endangered small

    Digital materials are listed Endangered when they face material technical challenges to preservation or responsibility for care is poorly understood, or where the responsible agencies are poorly equipped to meet preservation needs. This classification includes Vulnerable materials in the presence of aggravating conditions.

  • CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

    Critically Endangered small

    Digital materials are listed Critically Endangered when they face material technical challenges to preservation, there are no agencies responsible for them or those agencies are unwilling or unable to meet preservation needs. This classification includes Endangered materials in the presence of aggravating conditions.

  • PRACTICALLY EXTINCT

    Practically Extinct small

    Digital materials are listed as Practically Extinct when the few known examples are inaccessible by most practical means and methods.  This classification includes Critically Endangered materials in the presence of aggravating conditions.

  • CONCERN 

    Concern purple

    Digital materials are listed as of Concern when an active member of the digital preservation community has expressed a legitimate concern but the concern has not yet been assessed by the BitList jury.  They will be assessed for inclusion in the subsequent year.

Read the 2018 revision

Listen to William Kilbride talking to the BBC Click programme about the Bit List

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The 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species

 

The DPC's 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species is a crowd-sourcing exercise to discover which digital materials our community thinks are most at risk, as well as those which are relatively safe thanks to digital preservation. By compiling and maintaining this list over the coming years, the DPC aims to celebrate great digital preservation endeavors as entries become less of a ‘concern,’ whilst still highlighting the need for efforts to safeguard those still considered ‘critically endangered.’  

Click on each of the risk classifications to see the entries for each category, browse the Bit List by digital species or click each entry for the full report:

Risk Classifications

 

Download the BitList 2019 Poster

Watch the Recording of the Introduction to the Bit List of Digitally Endangered Species

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The 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species

The Global List of Digitally Endangered Species – The Bit List – offers an accessible snapshot of the concerns expressed by the global digital preservation community with respect to the risks faced by diverse types of digital content in varied conditions and contexts. It provides an elementary assessment of the imminence and significance of the dangers faced by different, and at times overlapping classifications of digital materials. By identifying the urgency of action and significance of content, The Bit List draws attention to those digital materials that, in the view of the global digital preservation community, require urgent action to remain viable.

 Access the full Bit List List Report for 2021

  • Watch the Introduction to the Bit List of Digitally Endangered Species 2021

 

Click on each of the risk classifications to see the entries for each category, browse the Bit List by digital species or click each entry for the full report:

Risk Classifications

Digital Species

 

Species Categories

 

 

Access older versions of the Bit List, now superceded

Read More

The 'Bit List' of Digitally Endangered Species

The Global List of Digitally Endangered Species – The Bit List – offers an accessible snapshot of the concerns expressed by the global digital preservation community with respect to the risks faced by diverse types of digital content in varied conditions and contexts. It provides an elementary assessment of the imminence and significance of the dangers faced by different, and at times overlapping classifications of digital materials. By identifying the urgency of action and significance of content, The Bit List draws attention to those digital materials that, in the view of the global digital preservation community, require urgent action to remain viable. 

READ THE 2022 BIT LIST OF DIGITALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES

 

Click on each of the risk classifications to see the entries for each category, browse the Bit List by digital species or click each entry for the full report:

Risk Classifications

Digital Species

 

Species Categories

 

 

Access older versions of and introductions to the Bit List, now superceded:

  • Introduction to the Bit List of Digitally Endangered Species 2021

Read More

The Global 'Bit List' of Endangered Digital Species

What is the Bit List?

A free-to-access and open resource for digital preservation advocacy, the DPC's Global Bit List of Endangered Digital Species (or Bit List for short) is a community-sourced list of at-risk digital materials which is revised every two years. Entries to the list are nominated by the community, who are at the forefront of digital preservation efforts, and reviewed by international organizations which represent global expertise in the preservation of the listed digital species.

By compiling and maintaining the Bit List, the DPC aims to equip digital preservation practitioners with independent evidence that digital materials are critically endangered, and that action is required, in order to support their targeted advocacy efforts.

READ THE BIT LIST REPORT 2023

Risk Classifications

Current entries were last nominated to the Bit List in 2023. Entries are grouped by risk ‘classification’ and digital ‘species.’ Click on each of the risk classifications to see the entries for each category, browse the Bit List by digital species and click each entry for the full report.

 

Digital Species

 

Species Categories

  • Nominate at-risk digital materials now!

    The Global Bit List of Endangered Digital Species is open for nominations of at-risk material from the digital preservation community all year round.

    Submit a nomination now for consideration as part of the next review cycle for the Bit List 2025.

    NOMINATE AT-RISK DIGITAL MATERIALS

    If you are unable to access the Google form to nominate your at-risk digital materials or you would like to prepare your information in advance,

    please download and complete the Excel version of the form.

    Completed Excel forms may be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Access previous versions of and introductions to the Bit List, now superceded:

  • Introduction to the Bit List of Digitally Endangered Species 2021

 

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Edinburgh Preserves: The Third Batch!

Garth Stewart

Garth Stewart

Last updated on 29 August 2017

One of the really nice things about working in digital preservation is the community’s friendly, open attitude. Practitioners regularly come together in formal and informal contexts – both invaluable – to share ideas, reflect on challenges, and learn from one another. It’s a testament to our collective benevolence that these gettogethers, often attended by colleagues from highly varied backgrounds and organisations, are consistently provide confidence and inspiration in what we do.

Such exchanges can work locally, too, and Edinburgh Preserves is one example of this; a local group that brings together a merry band of practitioners from across the greater Edinburgh area (and beyond!) who work in digital preservation, for informal discussion and networking.

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The Data Vanishes

William Kilbride

William Kilbride

Last updated on 30 August 2017

It’s time to come clean: I no longer know what data is. I am looking pretty hard but I just can’t see it any more. It’s a troubling realisation for someone who has spent twenty years or so trying to preserve the stuff. But the most unsettling part is this: I don’t think it’s me who is lost. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some delayed attack of post-modern angst. I am just trying to get to the end of the day. Is it possible that, just as it was reaching a crescendo of profile, polemic and promise, data has vanished, like Bilbo Baggins on his eleventy-first birthday?

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Art Conservation Meet Software Engineering: Converging Practices in the Preservation of Software-based Art

Tom Ensom

Tom Ensom

Last updated on 30 August 2017

At a conference earlier this year, the topic of preserving artworks involving digital media had been a recurring topic of discussion during and after talks. One artist, who works extensively with software as a medium, was clearly a little baffled by this preoccupation. Having a background in software engineering, they were quick to point out that this domain has been dealing with these kinds of problem for decades! An interesting provocation - but how much truth is there to it? Can software engineering principles really help solve of our digital preservation woes? In this blog post I will consider what we might learn from the discipline and how such a meeting of practices might be navigated.

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Lancaster University Library Joins the DPC

Added on 17 August 2017

The Digital Preservation Coalition welcomes Lancaster University Library as its newest Associate Member this week.

Currently establishing its digital preservation policy specifically to look after the long-term preservation of research outcomes, the Library’s key aim is to ensure that future generations can benefit from the scholarly digital outputs created by the world-class research and teaching undertaken at Lancaster University. One of the Jisc RDSS pilot institutions, Lancaster University brings extensive experience of working with shared services, interoperability between systems and applying this expertise to digital preservation.

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Back to the Cave: Communicating the Importance of Web Archiving to Everybody Who Doesn’t Already Care about Web Archiving

Sara Day Thomson

Sara Day Thomson

Last updated on 9 August 2017

 

ARPAnet Ettiquette

 

 

It’s entirely wrong, and it’s the road back to the cave. The way we got out of the caves and into modern civilisation is through the process of understanding and thinking. Those things were not done by gut instinct. -Professor Brian Cox

 

Chapter 1: Fluent in Eyebrow

In keeping with the last few blog posts by William Kilbride and Sarah Higgins, I am going to share my version of the proverbial experience of explaining information profession jobs to outsiders. In my case, a mildly awkward social interaction slightly intensified by my immigration status. For a year or so I waffled on how to describe my work to UK Border Control without arousing suspicion. Was that quizzical eyebrow code for: What kind of criminal can’t even explain her own job in fewer than 20 words?  

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