Nance McGovern is Associate for Digital Preservation Practice and Instruction at Global Archivist LLC and a DPC Fellow
Happy World Digital Preservation Day! Since introducing WDPD, the DPC has done such a great job engaging the digital preservation community in celebrating our most festive day. It is always fun to see what the theme is and this year is a great example - ‘Preserving Our Digital Content: Celebrating Communities’ is so timely.
When we say community for digital preservation, what do we mean? For me, the digital preservation community includes everyone who is engaged in the over-time activities and infrastructure (organizational and technological) needed to ensure that digital content will be preserved into the future. Building this community has been at the heart of the Digital Preservation Management Workshop work since 2001. Through the workshop, we have been developing and sharing approaches, tools, and curriculum to enable sustainable digital preservation programs. This is an example of a community of practice. My view adopts the definition of digital preservation that is elaborated in the Digital Archives and Preservation (DAP) Framework. It makes sense to, and we want to, collaborate with the digital archives and other related domain communities. I believe we need to distinguish them from each other to be able to engage in specific and productive discussions and partnerships that will allow each domain community to play to its strengths and thrive.
An important aspect of scope for the digital preservation community is belonging. There are those who belong to the iPres (international digital preservation conference) community – anyone who has attended the International Digital Preservation Conference, or who would like to attend, or contribute to the iPres community. There are local, national, and international networks and organizations whose members also overlap and belong with the digital preservation community. The DPC is a prominent and growing example of an international membership organization that has contributed to the growth of the digital preservation community for more than twenty years. The members who belong to the digital preservation community represent a diverse and evolving set of domains. This provides an opportunity we have not yet fully realized by working to better understand how the skills and strengths of each domain enables sustainable digital preservation – that’s where radical collaboration applied to digital practice comes in.
There are many benefits to belonging to community and there are roles and responsibilities for participants that are helpful as communities grow. The RACI project management approach can be usefully applied to responsibility assignment for digital preservation. Using the basic RACI roles – responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed – here’s how RACI roles might help build the digital preservation community.
Responsible: Everyone in the digital preservation community is responsible for contributing their own lessons learned and examples of good practice because to maximize their own limited resources they should adopt and adapt examples of good practice from other community members. Members are also responsible for participating in community efforts and activities to expand what we are able to achieve together. Participate …
Accountable: iPres is the largest professional conference that is dedicated to digital preservation. The iPres Steering Group (STG) is arguably accountable to the iPres community and to the broader digital preservation community for support and assistance to members and contribute to the continuity of the conference series. Pay attention …
Consulted: Since 2019, the iPres STG has committed to inform and consult with the iPres community as part of its role. Members of the iPres and broader digital preservation communities should watch for requests from STG for feedback and volunteers and be sure to respond! Members should contact STG to suggest topics and issues to be addressed by STG that would benefit from community feedback. Respond and share …
Informed: This role is sometimes seen as passive, but in the context of RACI is expected to actively work to become informed. Paying attention to the iPres listserv is one way to become informed. Sharing relevant examples from your organization and information from other lists and information sources is a way for iPres and digital preservation community members to help other members to be informed. Follow along …
The DPM Five Stages guides individuals and organizations towards achieving Institutionalize (Stage 4) and Externalize (Stage 5). The Five Stages are useful for gauging the status and growth of the digital preservation community. We have seen that at least some programs need to be at Stage 4 for Externalize to be possible – that is when communities are able to grow and sustain themselves.
There have been indicators recently – more organizations reaching Stage 4, more examples of good practice to share, more volunteers participating in DP community activities – that the capacity of the digital preservation community to expand and thrive has increased. We should be increasingly able to reach and include more and more parts of the global digital preservation community, to develop the next generation of leaders, builders, teachers, and champions. Let’s go!
Thanks to Kari Smith for her contributions!
Resources:
Digital Archives and Preservation (DAP) Framework: https://www.nancemcgovern.org/DAP-McGovern_FINAL.pdf
Digital Preservation Management Workshop: https://dpworkshop.org/
DPM Model – Five Stages and Three-legged Stool: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/spobooks/bbv9812.0001.001/1:11/--digital-libraries-a-vision-for-the-21st-century?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
iPres Conference and Steering Group (STG): https://ipres-conference.org/
Preserving Digital Information, 1996 report published by a predecessor of CLIR in 1996.
Radical Collaboration in Research Library Issues (RLI) 296, 2018: https://publications.arl.org/rli296/
Responsibility Assignment Matrix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix