This World Digital Preservation Day is a bit different to those we have experienced before, but certainly no less important and relevant. Coinciding, as it does every two years, with the Digital Preservation Awards, we had grand plans for a spectacular contribution to the days’ proceedings … an awards ceremony to be held at the newly opened Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg!
However, as the events of the year unfolded, it was clear that those plans would not be possible, and we even (very briefly) considered whether we would run the Digital Preservation Awards at all… after all, surely everyone everywhere had bigger fish to fry?!
But then it struck us, that the Digital Preservation Awards was exactly what we needed in a year like this. In fact, even more so! Hard work, excellent, clever, innovative work was still going on in spite of – and because of – the global crisis… albeit generally from spare rooms and dining tables rather than offices and labs.
Furthermore, like World Digital Preservation Day, it is an opportunity to come together and raise each other up. To celebrate and recognise all of the effort that goes on behind the scenes, the unglamourous stuff but, actually - at a time when the world has become suddenly even more dependent on access to data, it’s the stuff that keeps businesses going, keeps universities and schools educating, keeps researchers researching, keeps the world turning.
It is for all of these reasons that I am delighted and very excited to have reached the culmination of our 2020 Digital Preservation Awards process.
In less than one hour we will be revealing our winners, but first we will be publishing blog posts from a number of our finalists* and I would like to invite you to read about their incredible work, marvel at their community spirit, and their willingness and appetite to go above and beyond to advance our field of digital preservation.
Ladies and gentlemen, people of the digital preservation community, I give you the 2020 Digital Preservation Awards finalists.
*not all of them were able to write for us, but to see and hear from each of the 2020 Digital Preservation Awards finalists, you can watch the series of short programs on the awards page.