DPC

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome the University of East London as its latest member. 

‘UEL’s Library and Learning Services manage substantial and growing collections which are of long-term value, including publication and data repositories and curated digital collections’, explained Laura Mitchell, chair of the DPC.  ‘The collections are diverse in type, including digitised and born-digital materials including some 15000 images alone. The staff are committed to ensuring that these remain discoverable, authentic and useable in the long term.’

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome the University of Hull as its latest member.

‘Hull has made an outstanding contribution to the development of institutional repositories in the UK’, said Laura Mitchell chair of the DPC.  ‘Although they have been working in digital preservation for many years, their contributions to the ground-breaking AIMS project and Hydra tools have brought them into more direct contact with the digital preservation community lately.‘

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick as its newest member.

‘The Modern Records Centre is widely respected as a centre of excellence in archival research,’ explained  William Kilbride, Executive Director of the DPC. ‘They have recently augmented their processes and procedures for digital preservation and their digital collections are growing rapidly. This will help them managing their research data, the university’s own digital archives, and also the many archives deposited from outside agencies like the Confederation of British Industry.'

Introduction

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to invite members to a briefing day that will explore themes related to procuring and implementing digital preservation solutions, especially where that involves establishing and describing requirements for developers, programmers and vendors.

Digital preservation typically involves a wide range of skills and it’s unusual to find all the necessary skills in one person. Even larger organisations find it necessary to employ consultants to help them develop or deploy solutions. A new market of digital preservation tools and services is emerging into which a series of companies and not-for-profit agencies are now supplying products. The market could be characterised as a meeting between ‘problem owners’ and ‘solution providers’. But in an emerging field with rapidly changing technology and unclear requirements it can be hard for the right problem owner to find the right solution provider. This problem is exacerbated in two ways: firstly collection owners typically have limited practical experience of specifying their requirements which makes it hard – if not impossible – for developers to understand and meet their needs; secondly procurement managers – already struggling with significant budget pressures - find it hard to assess statements about the quality of solutions proposed. This can add delay and confusion in a process which is already complicated. It means that even organisations which properly understand their digital preservation needs can be frustrated in solving them, while solution providers have to meet impractical and at times nonsensical expectations.

This day-long briefing is intended to provider a neutral forum where solution providers and problem owners can talk directly and without prejudice about the challenges they face. The dialogue that results should clarify the process of requirements gathering and lower the barriers to effective procurement.

Presentations will:

• examine requirements from the perspective of the developer and the collection owner
• discuss procedures for procurement of preservation solutions
• present recent case studies and good practice in the development of requirements
• introduce and examine the range of proprietary and open source solutions for digital preservation currently available

The day will include a moderated ‘unconference’ session where technologists, procurement managers and collection owners will be free to discuss and review obstacles to procuring practical digital preservation.

Who should come?

This workshop will interest:

• Collections managers, librarians, curators and archivists in all institutions
• IT managers and procurement managers in memory institutions
• Records managers in institutions with a need for long-lived data
• CIOs and CTOs in organisations with commercial intellectual property
• Vendors and developers with digital preservation solutions
• Researchers with interests in research data management

Outline Programme

1000 – Registration open, tea and coffee

1015 - Webinar opens

1030 – Welcome and Introductions (William Kilbride)
1035 – Specifying Requirements: A technologists’ view (Angela Dappert)
1100 – Procuring Preservation: hoops, hurdles and processes (Susan Corrigall)
1125 – Solving problems that can be solved, and proving you have solved them: a developer’s perspective (Carl Wilson)
1150 – Discussion
1200 – Service Providers Forum:

• Ex Libris (Robert Bley)
• Tessella (Maite Braud)
• Arkivum (Matthew Addis)
• Archivematica (Courtney Mumma)
• Keep Solutions (Luis Faria)
• OPF (Ed Fay)

1300 - Webinar closes

1300 – Lunch (provided)

1400 – Unconference: What I need to know about digital preservation solutions but am too scared to ask
1500 – Coffee
1530 – Next steps
1600 – Close

The Digital Preservation Coalition, the Digital Repository of Ireland, the Health Sciences Library Group and the Academic and Special Libraries Section of the Library Association of Ireland are delighted to invite you to join them at a workshop which will equip collection managers, archivists, librarians and conservators with the skills necessary for ‘getting started in digital preservation’Digital preservation – representing all the activities necessary to ensure that digital objects and data can be found, accessed and deployed beyond the limits of technological obsolescence, media failure or creator dependency – is a growing challenge for agencies and individuals in all kinds of contexts. Our generation has invested as never before in digital resources and we've done so because of the opportunity they bring. Digital collections have grown in volume, complexity and importance to the point that our children are baffled by the inefficiencies of the analogue age. Pervasive, fluid and vital: digital data is a defining feature of our age. Industry, commerce, government, law, research, health, social care, education, the creative industries, the heritage sector and private life depend on digital materials to satisfy ubiquitous information needs and expectations. But digital objects are fragile: at risk of loss, corruption or obsolescence, not to mention unlawful alteration or theft. Collection managers, IT officers, academic researchers, broadcasters, developers and industrial regulators need to ensure that the digital collections which they use and depend upon are accessible for the long-term: but training in these new skills can be hard to acquire.This day-long introduction assumes no prior knowledge except a willingness to engage with digital preservation. Through a series of presentations, case studies and exercises, participants will learn how to apply techniques of assessment, risk management and planning to help secure their digital collections.Presentations and exercises will help participants:

• Understand the range of issues associated with digital preservation
• Survey and characterize a digital collection
• Undertake preliminary risk assessment to manage their own digital collections
• Understand preservation planning and write a basic preservation plan
• Meet and network with others locally working in digital preservatio

Who should come?

This workshop will interest:

• Collections managers, librarians, curators and archivists in all institutions
• IT managers in memory institutions
• Records managers in institutions with a need for long-lived data
• CIO’s in organisations with commercial intellectual property
• Students and researchers in information science and related fields
• Researchers with interests in research data management

Outline Programme

1000 – Registration open, tea and coffee

1030 – Welcome and Introductions - Natalie Harrower (DRI)

1035 – Introducing digital preservation - William Kilbride (DPC)

1100 – Making sense of your collection case study - Meadhbh Murphy (RCSI)

1120 – Discussion

1130 – Tool demo: making sense of a collection - William Kilbride (DPC)

1140 – Risk assessment and Digital Preservation - Sharon McMeekin (DPC)

1200 – Risk assessment exercise

1240 – Discussion

1245 – Lunch (provided)

1330 – Preservation planning case study - Aileen O'Carroll (DRI)

1350 – Preservation planning for beginners - William Kilbride (DPC)

1405 – Preservation Planning exercise

1450 – Short discussion

1500 – Comfort break

1515 – Next steps in digital preservation - William Kilbride (DPC)

1545 – Roundtable discussion

1600 – Close