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DPC staff have been involved in very many events and webinars over the years, responding directly to members’ needs and filling the gaps where other advice and support was lacking. The ‘Greatest Hits Collection’ will play that back over the coming months while colleagues and members are working from home and perhaps not able to access other development opportunities. And of course, we’re always open to proposals from members who want to put together their own digital preservation themed mix-tape.

You know you’re a real digital preservationist when you’ve uttered the words “digital preservation is not just storage” (or similar) so many times you’ve developed the verbal equivalent of muscle memory. It’s one of the key messages we aim to get across in our “Getting Started….” And “Making Progress with Digital Preservation” training courses, when trying to arm learners with the knowledge they’ll need to discuss digital preservation requirements with colleagues in the IT department. It’s certainly something I’ve said more times than I can count. I’ve even found it falling from my mouth in social situations outside of work!

Last month the DPC kicked off a new task force. A group specifically focused on considering how to preserve records from within an Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS).

According to Wikipedia, “Electronic document and records management is used by organizations to manage documents and records throughout the document life-cycle, from creation to destruction.” 

...but what if ‘destruction’ isn’t appropriate? What if preservation is required? In many organizations it is likely that some records require longer term retention or may even need to be kept in perpetuity.

In these situations the records may need to be transferred to an institutional digital archive to be managed (in a slightly different way) for the long term.

Two weeks ago, DPC launched #DPConnect so that the global digital preservation community can stay connected through the lockdown. Last week, with support from colleagues at the UK National Archives, we were able to open our online training platform ‘Novice to Know-How’. This week we'll announce two further initiatives so that, when we return to work, members will be better connected and better informed to meet the digital preservation challenges in their own institutions.

Over the years DPC has generated a significant amount of insightful content in the context of our webinars and briefing days, many of which have been recorded. These are already available through the members’ area of the website and they are a real bonus for anyone looking to update or refresh professional skills while working from home. Add to this the numerous blog posts, the Technology Watch Reports, and numerous standalone guides like the Business Case Toolkit and the Executive Briefing Pack there’s so much content, and in so many different forms, that the size of the opportunity is not immediately obvious. Even members familiar with our work are surprised at just how much material there is. So, starting this week, we’re going to introduce a new series which we’re calling ‘The Greatest Hits’.

On Friday last week the DPC hosted a webinar on ‘Enacting Environmentally Sustainable Preservation’. We were delighted to be able to get all four authors of a recent article in American Archivist in the (virtual) room together with our Members to discuss this important topic.

The article is available here and I’d urge digital preservation people everywhere to read it if you haven’t already. I joked within the webinar last week that I wished I’d written it myself...but I should also note that if I had it wouldn’t be nearly so thorough or well referenced!

In the paper, the authors (Keith Pendergrass, Walker Sampson, Tim Walsh and Laura Alagna) call for a paradigm shift to create environmentally sustainable digital preservation. They focus in particular on three key areas, asking us to consider how we view and enact appraisal, permanence, and the availability of digital content. They encourage us to make sustainable choices by integrating environmental sustainability into existing decision-making criteria and follow with detailed discussion and a framework for helping us more effectively consider our choices.

A Note from the Editor, Sara Day Thomson

As the coordinator of the DPC’s Web Archiving & Preservation Working Group, it has been my absolute pleasure to work with some of the most enthusiastic, creative, and persevering professionals in the field. The community of archivists, curators, librarians, researchers, and enthusiasts who do the work of capturing and preserving web resources has always displayed a collaborative spirit and a willingness to try new approaches and learn from each other.

The coronavirus pandemic has truly and profoundly put that spirit to the test, and the web archiving community has not disappointed.

‘The speed, scale, and level of interest in participating in this collective effort have been remarkable and have no comparison to previous collaborative endeavours,’ Jefferson Bailey from Internet Archive attests. ‘It is a great testament to the community's ability to work together.’

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been in touch with a handful of the professionals at the frontlines of this effort to archive the global experience of coronavirus. In a series of blog posts, I’ll share their insights into this urgent undertaking to capture the world’s response to coronavirus (Covid-19) online.

A Note from the Editor, Sara Day Thomson

As the coordinator of the DPC’s Web Archiving & Preservation Working Group, it has been my absolute pleasure to work with some of the most enthusiastic, creative, and persevering professionals in the field. The community of archivists, curators, librarians, researchers, and enthusiasts who do the work of capturing and preserving web resources has always displayed a collaborative spirit and a willingness to try new approaches and learn from each other.

The coronavirus pandemic has truly and profoundly put that spirit to the test, and the web archiving community has not disappointed.

‘The speed, scale, and level of interest in participating in this collective effort have been remarkable and have no comparison to previous collaborative endeavours,’ Jefferson Bailey from Internet Archive attests. ‘It is a great testament to the community's ability to work together.’

Over the last week I’ve been in touch with a handful of the professionals at the front lines of this effort to archive the global experience of coronavirus. In a series of blog posts, I’ll share their insights into this urgent undertaking to capture the world’s response to coronavirus (Covid-19) online.

Early this year I wrote a blog post introducing our exciting new online training endeavour, funded by The National Archives (UK), Novice to Ninja. A course that aims to provide beginners in digital preservation with the skills to implement simple workflows at their organizations. Four and a half months, 25 modules, around 35,000 words, and a new name (Novice to Know-How) later, today is the last day of the project. To be honest that hasn’t really sunk in yet. Perhaps when the bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge is popped open later, reality will hit!

A Note from the Editor, Sara Day Thomson

As the coordinator of the DPC’s Web Archiving & Preservation Working Group, it has been my absolute pleasure to work with some of the most enthusiastic, creative, and persevering professionals in the field. The community of archivists, curators, librarians, researchers, and enthusiasts who do the work of capturing and preserving web resources has always displayed a collaborative spirit and a willingness to try new approaches and learn from each other.

The coronavirus pandemic has truly and profoundly put that spirit to the test, and the web archiving community has not disappointed.

‘The speed, scale, and level of interest in participating in this collective effort have been remarkable and have no comparison to previous collaborative endeavours,’ Jefferson Bailey from Internet Archive attests. ‘It is a great testament to the community's ability to work together.’

Over the last week I’ve been in touch with a handful of the professionals at the front lines of this effort to archive the global experience of coronavirus. In a series of blog posts, I’ll share their insights into this urgent undertaking to capture the world’s response to coronavirus (Covid-19) online.

To kick off the series, we will hear from Nicola Bingham, Lead Curator for Web Archives at the British Library, who describes how the UK Web Archive has handled past major events and how coronavirus (Covid-19) has really tested this capacity. She also suggests some ways the community can pitch in and help, as well as some tips for how to do some coronavirus web archiving of your own, even if you have never archived a single website!

More to come from these tireless web archive first responders in the days ahead, so watch this space.

Stay safe everyone.

Alexandra Mitchell is Archivist at the University of Salford. She attended IDCC 2020 with support from the DPC's Career Development Fund which is funded by DPC Supporters.

How do we choose what digital preservation strategy to use? When I was asked by the DPC to select a paper on which to write a blog post I naively thought I would come out of this with some answers. Instead, Micah Altman’s paper highlighted just how complex digital preservation can be and any approach taken by an institution or indeed individual must take a constellation of factors into consideration.

Judith Carr is the Research Data Manager at the University of Liverpool. She attended IDCC 2020 with support from the DPC's Career Development Fund which is funded by DPC Supporters.

This is my second blog about the IDCC 2020 conference in Dublin.