Your sub-committee needs you!

Words by William Kilbride and Sarah Middleton

In the last few months, we’ve seen a fair bit of ‘newness’ at the DPC: a new chair, a new strategic plan and a new structure have all set us on an exciting path for the coming years. And the new structure and strategic plan, in particular, bring with them new opportunities for DPC members to become more involved in what we do and how we do it.

You may recall that the DPC has a number of sub-committees that help oversee our work and keep us focussed on member needs.  There are currently four sub-committees covering our six main areas of work. These are:

• Community Engagement: enabling a growing number of agencies and individuals in all sectors and in all countries to participate in a dynamic and mutually supportive digital preservation community.
• Advocacy: campaigning for a political and institutional climate more responsive and better informed about the digital preservation challenge; raising awareness about the new opportunities that resilient digital assets create.
• Workforce Development: providing opportunities for our members to acquire, develop and retain competent and responsive workforces that are ready to address the challenges of digital preservation.
• Capacity Building: supporting and assuring our members in the delivery and maintenance of high quality and sustainable digital preservation services through knowledge exchange, technology watch, research and development.
• Good Practice and Standards: identifying and developing good practice and standards that make digital preservation achievable, supporting efforts to ensure services are tightly matched to shifting requirements.
• Management and Governance: ensuring the DPC is a sustainable, competent organization focussed on member needs, providing a robust and trusted platform for collaboration within and beyond the Coalition.

The Community Engagement and Advocacy sub-committee looks after ongoing things like the website, communications plan and member development as well as specific activities like the Digital Preservation Awards, International Digital Preservation Day and the BitList.  It’s also where we discuss prospective members and priorities for community development. This sub-committee is chaired by Jane Winters of the University of London's Institute of Historical Research and this is my area of work, so I’m probably biased, but I think it’s great! Go team!

The Workforce Development sub-committee looks after ongoing things like maintenance of the Digital Preservation Handbook and our roadshow series ‘Getting Started…’ and ‘Making Progress in Digital Preservation’.  It also oversees the allocation of funds from the DPC ‘Leadership Programme’ which last year allocated about 10K worth of scholarships and travel grants. Finally, it also oversees stand-alone training projects or consultancies, like the work we did last year for National Archives of Ireland and Digital POWRR.  The sub-committee acts as a gatekeeper for major projects in training or skills, which in the DPC means we bring to the committee any grant applications or consultancies worth more than 20K per annum.  That way we can be sure that externally-funded initiatives, which are sometimes attractive for financial or political reasons, remain targeted on member needs.  This is Sharon McMeekin’s area of expertise and the sub-committee is chaired by Susan Corrigall at the National Records of Scotland.

The Capacity Building Standards and Good Practice sub-committee looks after DPC’s expert knowledge, so acts as editorial board for the Technology Watch Reports, assembles the Briefing Day programme and related Standards work.  It oversees any research projects we’re involved in on behalf of the Board: like VeraPDF where we had a direct role in requirements gathering and testing.  This sub-committee is the gateway for major projects or consultancies – so when the DPC is invited to join an externally funded research project we ask the sub-committee to comment.  In any year we normally have quite a few of these.  This area of work is looked after by Paul Wheatley and Sara Day Thomson and their sub-committee is chaired by Tracey Clarke of the University of Sheffield.

The Management and Governance sub-committee is perhaps the most technical and is where we make sure the DPC is a stable, going concern that is transparent about its activities for the benefit of members. It’s where the corporate risks are discussed: finances, staffing, legalities, facilities, constitution and the like. Mostly everything is straightforward but it’s incredibly important. It relies on having members with good judgement, independence and diplomacy if/when problems arise.  Which mercifully they don’t too often.  It supports Alyson Campbell’s area of work and it includes the independent Finance Director, Tim Keefe at Chester Beatty and independent chair of the Staffing Group, Ann Gow at the University of Glasgow.  The sub-committee is chaired by Maureen Pennock of the British Library.

The sub-committees meet online once every quarter for about 2 hours (with some occasional work offline via email) and they report directly to the Executive Board. 

Now, and in line with our new structure and new Strategic Plan, we’re refreshing our sub-committees too and have a few spaces available:

• Community Engagement and Advocacy (1 place)
• Workforce Development (2 places)
• Capacity Building, Standards and Good Practice (2 places)
• Management and Governance (2 places)

The DPC strives to be open, honest and inclusive in everything we do and the sub-committees are a great way to get involved and have a say in the way the DPC is run. So we’d like to hear from any members interested in joining one of our sub-committees, particularly those who have not previously been involved in steering the DPC; but new professional, experienced digital preservation practitioner, man, woman, child (maybe not actually), regardless of your organisation type or geography – your subcommittee needs you! 

Here’s the small print:

We should note that there’s an informal rule that if you come up with a great idea then we want you to help us achieve it, so we lean on sub-committee members for suggestions too. The term is minimum of a 12 months and maximum of 3 years, with renewal available thereafter.

If you would like to nominate yourself as a member of a sub-committee, please email William identifying the area you’d be interested in, by Thursday 1^st March.