Karyn Williamson is a Digital Preservation Analyst at the Digital Preservation Coalition
Digital preservation is complex and there is no one size fits all solution. This is especially true for the community archive sector, where many groups operate with limited resources, budget and specialist help. The Our Heritage, Our Stories project, a research project funded by the AHRC Towards a National Collection fund, has worked with a wide range of community groups and archives to research and document the community archives landscape in the UK.
One source of frustration that became clear during our work with community archives was the disconnect between the resources and guides available and the level at which many community archives operate. Digital preservation resources tend to be created by those working within the sector who have extensive knowledge and training. This comes with an assumed level of knowledge that makes guides and instructions produced difficult for those at the beginning of their digital preservation journey to follow.
This toolkit aims to bridge the gap between those at the beginning of their digital preservation journey and currently available resources aimed at the established record keeping sector. The toolkit has been designed with community groups in mind and provides practical guidance that requires little resources and budget to implement.
The main component of the toolkit is the matrix, which consists of 10 topics, split into three levels. Community groups can work through the matrix step by step to implement a functioning digital preservation workflow or choose a particular topic to learn more about and improve their current process. The matrix is joined by a range of documents which explain more about digital preservation, the record lifecycle and options for community groups to collaborate with others. Case studies from community groups across the UK are included to show the range of ways in which community groups operate. It is hoped this will inspire other groups to start their own digital preservation journeys.
Although the toolkit has launched, it is not the end of the project. The toolkit will be continually updated and added to by the DPC to ensure it remains useful and relevant to the community archive sector. This work will be carried out in collaboration with community archives to ensure it covers the topics they need in a way that helps them work on preserving their digital collections.
