The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and Yale University Library have launched a new 2-year project this month, which aims to enhance our digital preservation registry space. Registries of Good Practice will explore and develop different approaches to analyze, collate, present and, most importantly, make discoverable the many existing registries and collections of digital preservation good practice.
Andrew Jackson, Preservation Registries Technical Architect for the DPC, said “This isn’t about building a new registry. Rather, the goal is to make the most of everything we already have, and to recognise and empower all those people who contribute to the range of open information sources and resources we all rely on when preserving our digital heritage. Ultimately, we want to help practitioners find the guidance they need to solve their digital preservation challenges.”
“I’m really looking forward to working with the digital preservation community to help support and amplify all the effort that everyone puts into our various registries and records of formats, tools, workflows and practices.”
The Registries of Good Practice project is funded by Yale University for two years, with initial work focusing on utility and rapid iteration, while keeping in mind the need to deliver stable and maintainable solutions by the end. The project will operate in the open, with the team sharing progress early and often, encouraging feedback and interaction with the wider community.
Shira Peltzman, Associate Director of Preservation Digital Strategies at Yale University Library, said “It’s exciting to see a project that will focus on enhancing the technical registry ecosystem. Technical registries are the backbone of so many digital preservation systems, tools, and workflows, but they rarely get the sustained attention they deserve. This project is a unique opportunity to leverage and respect the existing work that has gone into these registries and create new pathways for engagement.”
Engagement with the wider community will be a critical part of ensuring project outputs are useful. Registries of Good Practice will be driven by the needs of digital preservation practitioners, so that the results are genuinely useful and can be integrated into the everyday working practices. Before building anything at all, therefore, the project will engage with the wider community interested in these issues.
The means of community engagement will also likely evolve over the course of the project but, as a starting point, the DPC is establishing a Preservation Registries Special Interest Group for anyone who would like to identify and discuss registries, and make suggestions about how these may be used for the development of the project. Participants do not need to be DPC members, all are welcome.
To express interest in participating in the Preservation Registries Interest Group, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
About the DPC
The DPC is an international charitable foundation which supports digital preservation, helping its 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.
About Yale University Library
Yale University Library is made up of more than a dozen libraries and locations and more than 500 staff. Technology, expertise, vast physical and digital collections, and extensive electronic resources connect in service to teaching, learning, research, and practice.