Blog

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.

Kate Murray works as Digital Project Coordinator and Liz Holdzkom as Digital Collection Specialist for the Library of Congress

Accessibility is a growing area of interest in the digital preservation community. The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) for example has published Guidelines for Software Accessibility for Open Source Digital Preservation Applications and Guidelines for Embedding Metadata in WebVTT Files.

Starting in 2024, the Sustainability of Digital Formats resource, hosted by the Library of Congress, initiated a project to document support for digital accessibility features in file formats listed in the Recommended Formats Statement (RFS). The FDDs or format description documents are one of the resources used by RFS Content Teams determine if a format is preferred or acceptable under the RFS guidance.

Kate Wittenberg is Managing Director at Portico

The Portico digital preservation service is developing a pilot project to include in our dark archive important under-represented content that may be at-risk because it is not preserved.  For this project, we define under-represented content as material concerning people, communities, or topics that have had inadequate representation in traditional publishing, library and archival collections, and preservation services and that may therefore be at risk over the long term.

This blogpost has been written by the City St George's School of Health and Medical Sciences Archivist Juulia Ahvensalmi, Records Manager Kirsten Hylan, and Research Data Support Manager Sarah Stewart.

Our speciality is healthcare with the records and data we produce supporting our education and research activities, ultimately becoming part of the history of medicine.  Digital preservation ensures these records remain accessible to have the greatest positive impact and meet our aim to improve health for everyone through inspiring education and research. 

‘Preserving Our Digital Content: Celebrating Communities’ is the theme of this year’s , allowing us to celebrate, how, by working with recordkeeping colleagues across the university and beyond, digital preservation has become another tool in our information management toolbox. Digital preservation helps us to comply with regulations regarding the retention of records, research sponsor requirements, and ensures our institutional history continues to be sustained. 

Sarah Lorenowich is a Director with Friends of Grain Elevators and Sara Janes is University Archivist at Lakehead University 

In 2003, Friends of Grain Elevators’ (FOGE) founding members came together with the shared goal of preserving the slowly fading history of Thunder Bay’s grain industry. Companies amalgamated, grain elevators were slated for demolition, and critical historical information about the port’s accomplishments—and the people who achieved them—was being lost. Few in Thunder Bay knew that the city was once the largest grain port in the world, let alone that the grain industry was still active in the harbour. Preservation efforts began with the collection of physical artifacts, documents, and photographs, but these could only ever tell part of the story.

[An English version follows]

En este Día Mundial de la Preservación Digital, se invitó al DPC a realizar una presentación sobre preservación digital y cambio climático en la RIPDASA. Esta entrada del blog es una transcripción de la presentación que realicé. Un enorme agradecimiento a William Kilbride por escribir la versión original para mí en inglés, y a Jenny Mitcham y Michael Popham por acompañarme y prestarme su experiencia en el seminario web. Gracias tambien, como siempre, a la RIPDASA por la oportunidad y la cálida bienvenida. Siempre es un placer trabajar juntos. 

Al principio ... El Manual de Preservación Digital describe la preservación digital como "la serie de actividades gestionadas necesarias para garantizar el acceso continuo a los materiales digitales durante el tiempo que sea necesario".

Esto no significa mantener "todo en todas partes y para siempre".

Hablamos de preservación, pero eso también implica que podemos eliminar cosas. Por lo tanto, para reducir tu huella digital, escribe una política que defina qué necesitas realmente conservar.

Laura Isabel Sastoque Pabon is Digital Preservation Training Officer at the University of Southampton

In celebration of World Digital Preservation Day 2024, Digital Preservation Southampton presents an interactive lesson on file integrity checking, designed for educators and trainers to implement in their own classroom or workshop settings. This engaging activity invites participants to take on the role of digital detectives, where they will identify and restore corrupted files.

Gali Halevi is Collection Development Director at CLOCKSS

In the field of archiving and preservation, the concept of "biblio-equity" is essential for ensuring that collections reflect the rich diversity of global scholarship and communities. Biblio-equity embodies principles of fairness, justice, and equal access to preserved resources, while preservation efforts focus on safeguarding materials that represent a wide range of languages, cultures, and backgrounds.

To develop archiving strategies that elevate historically marginalized voices and scholarship, it is crucial to recognize the long-standing inequities within archival collections. Communities such as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQIA+, disabled, and neurologically diverse individuals have often been systematically excluded, resulting in their contributions being underrepresented in archival records. Moreover, there has traditionally been a focus on preserving materials from developed nations, often overlooking significant contributions from diverse and developing non-English-speaking regions.

Ellie Burnage works for publisher Exact Editions based in the UK

“Membership is a relationship. People give their money, but also their time, ideas, expertise and connections to support a cause that they believe in […] It’s a two-way relationship.”
Ariel Zirulnick, Fund Director of Membership Puzzle Project (Press Gazette, 2021)

In recent years, many specialist interest magazine publishers (and media organisations as a whole) have transitioned into membership models as a way to create engaged communities of readers with shared passions, hobbies and interests. This means that in addition to regular subscriptions, publishers are also offering their communities access to myriad other benefits under a membership umbrella, such as discounts, events, discussion forums and digital access to archives.

Tom Wilson is Digital Preservation Archivist at the British Film Institute National Archive

So, let’s address the first elephant in the room. I’m aware that a SIP is a Submission Information Package, i.e., an input into a system. I’m also aware that “sipping from” implies taking something out, but the pun was too good to pass on!  

The second elephant in the room (at least, in the rooms I frequent at work), is the one regarding the “new” digital preservation practices that we are implementing for Our Screen Heritage, the new, major, national lottery-funded project at the British Film Institute (BFI) National Archive. The digital preservation team at the Archive have heard our colleagues talking about us implementing new and groundbreaking ideas and practices for digital preservation of born-digital documents. Whilst this may well be true within the context of BFI, we cannot make any such claim outside of the BFI. Happily, the community theme of World Digital Preservation Day gives us an ideal opportunity to acknowledge and thank the digital preservation community for their generously shared knowledge and experience.