The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and nestor, the German competence centre in long-term archiving, are delighted to announce a new alliance which allows them to share resources and enables their members to work together for the preservation of digital objects.

‘Nestor is a coalition of institutions in Germany, facilitated by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, with the goal of encouraging knowledge exchange and co-operation in of digital preservation,’ explained Sabine Schrimpf of nestor.. ‘Our work is not restricted to the national level. The partners maintain close links with corresponding initiatives in other countries and are actively involved in European and international initiatives and projects.  We’ve always understood that collaboration is important for digital preservation, and because it is an international challenge it makes sense to work with partners around the world.  We have a lot in common with DPC and we recognise that we can be more effective when we work together.’

‘We’ve been very impressed by the range and depth of work which nestor has undertaken over the years’ said William Kilbride of the DPC, ‘and we’ve collaborated in a variety of ways in the past.  But up till now this has tended to be on an ad hoc basis and it’s really only been possible for our officers to work together.  The real strength of nestor and DPC are our members so this new alliance is designed so that our members can work together on a regular basis.  DPC members will be invited to join nestor activities, while nestor members can participate in DPC briefings and have priority access to DPC reports and publications.’

By this new agreement, DPC members will be able to:

• access to details of nestor’s annual program plans and receive regular updates on nestor activities
• access English language abstracts and summaries of nestor publications and nestor events
• observe and contribute to nestor planning activities and consultation on nestor’s functional focus areas
• participate in nestor standards development and working groups 

While nestor members will be able to:

• get priority access to reports commissioned by the DPC as well as papers from DPC Working Parties and Task Forces
• access the private DPC-DISCUSSION list which provides regular updates on the progress of the DPC and related developments
• attend DPC briefings and meetings
• become Observers at the DPC Annual General Meeting and DPC annual Planning Day
• and Vote in the Digital Preservation Award

Although DPC will continue to work in English and nestor will continue to work in German, nestor will undertake to disseminate DPC outputs to a German language audience and to provide English language abstracts of nestor events and publications

Nestor’s activities include working groups on:

• Media/Film
• Cooperation & Networking
• Rights
• Preservation Planning
• Emulation
• Certification
• Terminology
• Cost
• Policies
• Reporting
• Web Archiving
• Research data
• Curriculum development

For more about nestor see: http://www.langzeitarchivierung.de/