This award celebrates the adoption of digital preservation tools and approaches in an organization that is not explicitly a memory institution. The prize in this category consists of a trophy to be retained by the recipient, certificates for participating individuals, and a cash prize of £1000 payable to the lead nominee’s organization.
Meet the finalists:
GOG Preservation Program
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Nominee: Good Old Games (GOG) The GOG Preservation Program is a systematic effort by GOG, a PC digital distribution platform, to maintain playability of classic video games on current and future gaming systems. Since its public launch in November 2024, the program has grown to cover 267 titles, with over 1,400 applied fixes, improvements, and, whenever possible, restored content. Each title undergoes dedicated technical work — from custom DirectX wrapping to installer rebuilds — backed by a long-term commitment to ongoing maintenance. GOG also contributes to broader industry preservation efforts through its EFGAMP board membership and public advocacy, including a dedicated game preservation panel at GDC 2026. |
LDF Recollection: Innovating a Civil Rights Archive
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Nominee: NAACP Legal Defense Fund Archives Team The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is a nonprofit law firm spearheading the fight for civil rights since 1940. In Fall 2024, the Archives Team launched LDF Recollection, a public digital repository containing over 13,000 institutional records. Our mission is to steward and share this collection documenting the historic and ongoing struggle for civil justice and political, educational, and economic equity. With our partners at Durable Digital, we have innovated a digitization workflow supporting the unique preservation and security needs of a legal civil rights archive by integrating Recollection with archival software and a customer relations management database. |
Diageo Archive AI Cataloguing Assistant Application
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Nominee: Alice McFarlane, Diageo Archive The Diageo Archive AI Cataloguing Assistant application is an Azure-hosted prototype that automates and embeds preservation-aware metadata creation, validation, and quality control into archive cataloguing workflows. It improves metadata consistency, reduces manual effort, and strengthens the long-term accessibility and usability of born-digital and digitised heritage assets. Combining OCR, image analysis, structured metadata mapping, and human quality assurance, it enables scalable, auditable cataloguing while retaining archivist oversight. The initiative demonstrates how AI can support responsible digital preservation in a commercial context by reducing risk, improving data quality, and enabling sustainable management and automation of digital collections at scale. |
This category is sponsored by:
