News

Preserving our digital heritage: Digital Preservation Coalition and British Library Preservation Advisory Centre join forces to build digital preservation skills

The British Library Preservation Advisory Centre and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) signed a major new memorandum of understanding on Tuesday 19 January.

Focussing on training and skills development, the first joint initiative will be an event on the preservation of digital objects aimed at librarians, archivists and technical staff involved in the creation and care of digital content. Fostering a culture of shared responsibility for and understanding of digital content amongst those caring for library and archive materials is a goal of both organisations.

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome as members the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, acting jointly through the 'SWISH Partnership'.

'The Royal Commissions collect, record and interpret information on the architectural, industrial, archaeological and maritime heritage of our countries,' explained Kirsty Lingstadt of RCAHMS.  'We have been doing this for more than a hundred years so our archives are vast and continue to expand.'

'Our digital collections are growing rapidly. Between us we curate more than 300,000 digital objects totalling over 11TB and we expect this to increase by more than 50000 objects and 3TB annually. We have very diverse types of data including GIS data, vector graphics and laser scanning.

The DPC starts the new year with a new chair: Richard Ovenden, Associate Director and Keeper of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford was elected chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) at our AGM in November 2009.

Founded 2001, the DPC is a not-for-profit membership organisation whose primary objective is to raise awareness of the importance of the preservation of digital material and the attendant strategic, cultural and technological issues. 

The DPC is pleased to announce that the Archaeology Data Service at the University of York has become the latest organisation to join the coalition.

'The Archaeology Data service is a national data archive for archaeology and related disciplines in the UK', explained Prof Julian Richards, director of the ADS.  'We are the mandated archive for archaeological data for the AHRC and NERC and work closely with a variety of national agencies such as English Heritage, to ensure the long term preservation and dissemination of digital data. We currently curate more than 250 archives covering thousands of archaeological projects, as well as a wealth of digital library resources.  There is a broad range of data types and several terabytes of data.'

The DPC is sponsoring places so that members can attend the forthcoming Planets workshop in London 9-11th February.   This offer is available for prospective members provided that they can submit their applications by Friday 8th January. More details of the workshop can be found here.

DPC wishes a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our members, friends and allies.  Note that the office will be closed between lunchtime on 23rd December and 0900 on 4th January.  Staff may collect email intermittently

The DPC has comprehensively updated and renewed its website - our first major makeover since being set up in 2001.  The new site allows members to log in and edit content directly, and it uses Web 2.0 technology to draw content from remote sources.  Based on the open source content management system JOOMLA, the new site was built for the DPC by Cybermedia

The DPC, Society of Archivists and CyMAL are pleased to announce the next (and final) stops for the Digital Preservation Roadshow - the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth on 22/1/10) and Glamorgan Archives in Cardiff (15/02/10). For details including programme and registration, see the booking form on the Welsh Assembly Government website.