New Members

East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO) have joined the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) this month, becoming the Coalition’s newest Associate Member.

ESBHRO is responsible for the preservation of the historical record of both its county and city, with records including born digital and digitised. Their holdings are maintained at The Keep archive centre in Brighton on the south coast of England, run as a partnership between East Sussex County Council, Brighton and Hove City Council and the University of Sussex.  

Ceris Howard, who is Team Manager for Archive Services and The Keep at ESBHRO, is also responsible for the corporate digital preservation strategy for East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and works with the Records Management Service and colleagues from across ESCC to promote and find solutions for digital storage, access and retention.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes the National Library of Israel (NLI) as they become the Coalition’s newest Associate Member.

Established to collect, preserve, cultivate and endow the knowledge, heritage and culture of Israel, NLI’s goal is to become an institution at the frontier of information and cultural ingenuity. NLI is committed to making a robust contribution to the international effort of preserving the cultural heritage of humankind.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) this month, as they become the Coalition’s newest Associate member.

Responsible for the archives of the State Government of Victoria in Australia and, having launched its Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS) in 1999, PROV is committed to digital preservation to ensure key Victorian Government records remain usable and accessible over time.

PROV was the first state archive in Australia to implement a digital archive and develop a unique information package to encapsulate digital material and associated metadata into a single object, and is this year set to launch a brand-new digital archive and suite of systems to manage and facilitate access to its collection.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) this month, as they become the Coalition’s newest Associate member.

In one form of another, AWE has been part of the UK defence establishment for more than 70 years.  Over this time, it has accumulated a significant archive, demonstrating the importance of robust records management and preservation. AWE’s archives include many legacy media types and formats and ensuring the resilience of these records is critical for national security and safety.

Finnish non-profit state enterprise CSC ‒ IT Center for Science has joined the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), becoming the Coalition’s newest Associate Member. 

Funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, CSC has produced sustainable national digital preservation services for cultural heritage and research data in Finland since 2015. Services are developed in close collaboration with partner organisations to preserve their digital assets whilst other provisions include maintaining national digital preservation specifications, developing open-source software, maintaining hardware for preservation, and offering support for national organisations on various aspects of digital preservation.

“We believe that international collaboration is the way to successful digital preservation. Being part of the DPC, we look forward to benefitting from the experiences of all members and sharing our own national lessons-learned back to the community” explains Kimmo Koivunen, Development Manager for CSC. 

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes The Postal Museum this new year, as they become Associate Members of the Coalition.

The Postal Museum, located in London, reveals five centuries of British social and communications history as seen through the eyes of its iconic postal service. The museum cares for the records generated by Royal Mail and Post Office Limited in the UK. These records constitute the business archive of the Post Office since 1637 and hold the status of Public Records under the Public Records Act 1967. The Postal Museum is also developing an archive of records generated by the museum itself. With this remit, The Postal Museum is currently working to develop capacity to transfer and preserve these records in a digital format.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes the University of South Africa (UNISA): Department of Library & Information Services, as they become the Coalition’s newest Full Member.

With its main campus in Pretoria, UNISA has one of the largest academic libraries in Africa. The aim of the library is to ensure that its resource selection and digital preservation practices directly support students and researchers by providing study, teaching and research materials regardless of transactional distance or time barriers, in any format that is available.

As an open distance learning institution serving students across the continent and the globe, UNISA depends on linking learning with systems and making technology accessible, understandable and subservient to the intellectual enterprise of the university.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes the University of Cape Town Libraries (UCTL) this month, as they become the Coalition’s newest Full Member.

The not-for-profit DPC is an international advocate and catalyst for digital preservation, helping members around the world to deliver resilient long-term access to digital content and services through community engagement, targeted advocacy work, training and workforce development, capacity building, good practice and standards, and through good management and governance. Its vision is a secure digital legacy.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to welcome Standard Life Aberdeen Plc as a Full Member. 

Based in Edinburgh Scotland, Standard Life Aberdeen is a Global Investment company with an almost 200-year history. The last five years have seen a focus on building an archive to manage the company’s physical records. And now, also preserving born digital records, the company is keen to move to the digital preservation phase and actively manage the records which will retain the company’s history for future generations.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) welcomes the Science Museum Group, as they become the newest Associate Member of the Coalition this month.

With five museums around the UK, the Science Museum Group consists of the Science Museum in London, National Railway Museum in York, National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, Locomotion in County Durham and the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. Over several decades, the Group’s digitization programme has built up significant digital collections and the museums are increasingly having to manage born-digital content, both internally generated and acquired content.