Also in this section

Completed Working Groups and Task Forces

Completed, inactive or superseded groups

External groups which have consulted DPC

The links here are to advisory groups, working groups, and task forces charged with a range of objectives but all broadly concerned with digital preservation issues. They all have involvement from DPC members.

  • Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation Project Advisory Group
    An eighteen month AHRB funded research project managed by the University of Loughborough. The project sought to investigate whether copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content threaten the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content and to suggest ways in which the problems can be overcome.
  • Experts Working Group on the Preservation of Digital Memory
    http://www.erpanet.org/events/workgroup/index.php
    The experts workgroup was established following the International Conference in Firenze on 16/17 October 2003 in order to check the state-of-art and plan development as needed to implement the resolution principles. The workgroup is headed by the Erpanet and Minerva projects, under the chairing of the European Commission.
  • PADI International Advisory Group
    http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/about.html#IAG
    The Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) web site is a subject gateway to digital preservation resources. It has an associated discussion list padiforum-l for the exchange of news and ideas about digital preservation issues. The National Library of Australia, who host the PADI site, have a MOU with the DPC, and one of the outputs of this is the quarterly current awareness bulletin What's New In Digital Preservation? Available both from the DPC website and PADI. There is also DPC representation on PADI's International Advisory Group, established to provide advice and guidance for the PADI initiative.
  • PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)
    http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/orprojects/pmwg/default.htm
    This working group continues the effort of the OCLC/RLG Working group which developed the preservation metadata framework, using the metadata framework as a conceptual foundation and starting point for its work. The focus of the PREMIS group will be on the practical aspects of implementing preservation metadata in digital preservation systems.
  • RLG/NARA Task Force on Digital Repository Certification
    http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/rlg/repositorycert.htm
    The purpose of the TF is to produce certification requirements for establishing and selecting reliable digital information repositories. This effort is part of ongoing work with the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model, and RLG and NARA intend the results to go into the standardization process through the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) Archiving Series. A draft of the task force's certification report is now available from the RLG Digital Repository Certification page.
Read More

Digital Preservation for Small Businesses: An Introductory Guide

front page screenshotDigital information plays a central role in most aspects of our lives. Running a small business is no exception. Important information that would once have been produced on paper is now created, shared and maintained as digital information (for example, annual reports, minutes of meetings, contracts and other legal agreements, publicity or marketing materials, financial returns and correspondence). Small businesses create all these types of digital information and more, and need to ensure they can be accessed for as long as necessary, but digital materials are complex and require proactive management. It can be hard to know where to start, particularly if you work for a small organization with no support from IT or records management specialists. 

The advice contained within this introductory guide focuses on common sense management of digital information and highlights actions you can incorporate into your day-to-day working practices in order to have greater confidence in your ability to manage and preserve the valuable information that you hold.  

 

Whilst the advice within this guide was written with small businesses in mind, the guide may be helpful for any small-medium organization that is interested in starting to better manage their digital information for the longer term. 

READ DIGITAL PRESERVATION FOR SMALL BUSINESSES: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE

Acknowledgements

The guide was originally commissioned by ARCW, funded by The National Archives (UK) through the Covid-19 Archives Fund and was created by the Digital Preservation Coalition. It is published under an Open Government Licence.

Versions

The original version of the guidance, published by ARCW in August 2022 is aimed at small businesses in Wales and is available here. A Welsh language version is also available. 

The version of this guidance published here on the DPC’s website has undergone some minor updates to make it more applicable to an international audience.

Suggested citation of current version Digital Preservation Coalition (2022). Digital Preservation for Small Businesses: An Introductory Guide. [doi]
Last updated August 2022
Date of next planned review 2027 

Read More

Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation

Digital preservation good practice is not solely about how successfully we preserve the bits and enable access to them, it must also take into account the broader context in which our work sits, and the wider responsibilities we have to society and the environment. Simply put, there is no point in preserving the bits if there is no one left to read and understand them. As a community we must therefore balance risks to the digital content that we hold not only against the financial cost but also the cost to the environment. We must consider how we reduce the environmental impact of our work, whilst continuing to maintain our valuable digital content for future generations. This is a challenging balancing act and we must work together as a community to evolve digital preservation good practice to minimise the environmental impact of our actions.

 

Environmentally sustainable digital preservation is not a new topic for the DPC and the wider digital preservation community, but it is certainly one that is growing in urgency. The DPC first addressed this topic in 2010 with an article in our newsletter from William Kilbride entitled ‘Here comes the tide’ and William’s involvement in a panel discussion at the iPRES conference ‘How Green is Digital Preservation’. In more recent years, other voices in the community have joined in this call to action and now we have a more substantial volume of content on this topic scattered across the DPC website.

 

This web page brings together this content in one place and includes links to blogs, events and other relevant resources from the DPC.

Blogs:

 SEE ALL BLOGS

Events:

Other Resources:

Read More

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to those people and organisations who have helped make translations of the following resources available:

Digital Preservation Handbook

French

  • La traduction française a été réalisée par le National Format Watch Unit (CNVF).

Italian

  • Traduzione italiana di Assunta Caruso e Claudia Lanza, Università della Calabria. Premessa all'edizione italiana di Roberto Guarasci, Università della Calabria, Italia.

 

DPC Rapid Assessment Model 2.0

Chinese (Simplified)

  • 简体中文翻译由圣母大学 Helen Hockx-Yu 支持

Chinese (Traditional)

  • 繁體中文翻譯由史丹佛大學 Peter Chan 創作

Dutch

  • De Nederlandse vertaling is verzorgd door Sophia van Hoek van het Nationaal Archief.

French

  • La traduction française a été réalisée par Valene Jouvet de la Bibliothèque nationale du Royaume-Uni et a été relue par le National Format Watch Unit (CNVF).

Japanese

  • Document translated by: Akiko Kimura (British Library)

  • Document reviewed by: Dr. Sugimoto (University of Tsukuba), Mr. Nakanishi (Waseda Uniersity Teatre Museum), and Etsuko Watanabe (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)

Italian

  • Tradotto da Giulia Brecciaroli, British Library e recensito da Elena Nepoti, Imperial War Museums

Portuguese

  • Traduzido do Inglês por Bianca Miranda Cardoso da Biblioteca Britânica e revisado por Fabiana Barticioti da Biblioteca LSE.

Spanish

  • Traducción por RIPDASA: Pamela Vizner (Consultora, AVP), Perla Olivia Rodriguez (Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliotecológicas y de la Información de la UNAM), Sofía Camacho (Facultad de Información y Comunicación, Universidad de la República, Uruguay), Pamela Gionco (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Angélica Valenzuela, Mirerza González, Ph.D (Decana Asociada de Asuntos Académicos, Facultad de Humanidades, Recinto de Rio Piedras, Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPRRP)) y revisión de Maria Fuertes de LIBNOVA.

Turkish

  • Document translated by: Dr. Özhan Sağlık (Bursa Uludağ University)

  • Document reviewed by: Mustafa Ergül (Koç University Suna Kıraç Library) and Nathalie Defne Gier (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations Library)  

 

DPC Rapid Assessment Model

French

  • La traduction française a été réalisée en collaboration par la Cellule nationale de veille sur les formats, Valene Jouvet de la Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume-Uni et révisée par Roxana Maurer de la Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg. Lancée en 2019, la Cellule nationale de veille sur les formats (CNVF), sous l’égide de l’association française Aristote et de son groupe de travail sur la Pérennisation de l’information numérique (PIN), regroupe à ce jour une dizaine de partenaires, principalement des institutions publiques nationales. Ces principaux objectifs sont la mutualisation des activités de veille sur les formats, la sensibilisation des professionnels sur le sujet, la contribution ou l’influence sur les outils associés. Elle ambitionne d’être un interlocuteur francophone reconnu dans les travaux internationaux sur ces sujets.

Japanese

  • Document translated by: Akiko Kimura, British Library

  • Document reviewed by: Etsuko Watanabe, National Archives of Japan

Portuguese

  • Traduzido do Inglês por Bianca Miranda Cardoso da Biblioteca Britânica.

 

Executive Guide on Digital Preservation

French

  • Document translated by: UNESCO

  • Document reviewed by: Valene Jouvert, British Library

Spanish

  • Document translated by: UNESCO

  • Document reviewed by: Mirerza González (University of Puerto Rico), Georgina Sanabria and Perla Olivia Rodriguez (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Arabic

  • Document translated by: translation team at the National Archives of United Arab Emirates, with special thanks to Director General Dr. Abdulla Al Raisi.

  • Document reviewed by: translation team at the Qatar National Library. 

 

iPres 2022 Keynote Transcripts  

Arabic

Translations by the Qatar National Library Content Team

French

Translations by members of the Preservation of Digital Information (PIN) working group of the Cellule Nationale de Veille sur les formats (National Formats Watch Unit), under the aegis of the French association Aristote, as follows:

After the Cloud

Thomas Ledoux (Bibliothèque nationale de France), André Falut (Archives Nationales) and Dominique Naud (Service interministériel des Archives de France).

Digital Ties that Bind

Marion Humbert (Archives départementales de la Moselle) and Édouard Vasseur (École nationale des Chartes).

Video Killed the Radio Star

Thomas Ledoux et Bertrand Caron (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

German

Translations by members of nestor: Merle Friedrich, Eva Müller and Micky Lindlar, TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library and Svenia Pohlkamp, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Japanese
After the Cloud

Translation: Shintaro Seki (The University of Tokyo)
日本語訳：関慎太朗（東京大学大学院人文社会系研究科博士課程）

Digital Ties That Bind

Translation: Nozomi Ohtsuki (The University of Tokyo)
日本語訳：大月希望（東京大学大学院学際情報学府博士課程）

Video Killed the Radio Star

Translation: Soichi Nagano (École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
日本語訳：長野壮一（フランス社会科学高等研究院・博士課程）

For all transcripts:

Supervisor for translation: Kiyonori Nagasaki (International Institute for Digital Humanities), Ikki Ohmukai (The University of Tokyo)
監修：永崎研宣（一般財団法人人文情報学研究所）, 大向一輝（東京大学大学院人文社会系研究科）
Proofreader for translation: Yuna Murata (National Diet Library)
校閲：村田祐菜（国立国会図書館）
Advisor for translation: Etsuko Watanabe (Senior Specialist, Japanese National Memory of the World Committee)
協力：渡辺悦子（文部科学省国際統括官付　ユネスコ調査官）

Spanish

Translations by Gabriela Andaur Gomez – Digital Archivist and Acting Coordinator, Electronic Archives Division, Nacional Archivo de Chile

 

Procurement Toolkit

German

 

Technology Watch Publications

French
Korean

If you would like to offer a translation of a DPC resource, please read our Translations Policy and Strategy and get in touch.

 

 

Read More

Discover Good Practice

 

bell

Get help with your digital preservation

Use this to find the assistance you need to do digital preservation, from reference materials to asking the question of others.
bell

Dedicated Support for Members

Use this to learn about, and discover how to access, the 5 days per year of dedicated support time to which full DPC members are entitled.
bell

Digital Preservation Handbook

A complete guide to all aspects of digital preservation, acting as a primer on the subject and with pointers to recommended further information.
bell

Technology Watch Publications

DPC Technology Watch publications provide authorative guidance on a variety of digital preservation topics chosen by Coalition members. They include short Guidance Notes on specific topics and longer Reports providing more detailed reference information.
bell

Digital Preservation for Small Businesses: An Introductory Guide

An introductory guide focused on common sense management of digital information and highlights actions which may be incorporated into your day-to-day working practices in order to have greater confidence in your ability to manage and preserve the valuable information that you hold.
bell

Working Groups and Task Forces

 The DPC Sub Committees and subject specific groups.
bell

Curation Costs Exchange

 Understanding and comparing digital curation costs to support smarter investments.
bell

Case Studies

 Case studies addressing digital preservation issues in specific settings.
bell

Discover resources in other languages

The creation of multi-lingual DPC material is therefore a vital way of supporting the digital preservation community across the world, and a key part of the DPC’s internationalization strategy. 
bell

Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation

Digital preservation good practice is not solely about how successfully we preserve the bits and enable access to them, it must also take into account the broader context in which our work sits, and the wider responsibilities we have to society and the environment.
bell

Discover preservation topics

 Use this to browse content on this website by the following topics: preservation issues, file formats or content types.
Read More

Older or Superseded Technology Watch Publications

Please see below for older or superseded Technology Watch Publications:

Intellectual Property Rights and Preservation  by Andrew Charlesworth 2012

Preserving Moving Pictures and Sound by Richard Wright 2012

Preserving Email by Christopher J Prom 2011

Preserving Geospatial Data by Guy McGarva, Steve Morris and Greg Janée 2009

File formats for Preservation by Malcolm Todd 2009

JPEG 2000 - a Practical Digital Preservation Standard? by Robert Buckley, Ph.D 2008

Preserving the Data Explosion: Using PDF by Betsy A. Fanning 2008

Large-scale Archival Storage of Digital Objects by Jim Linden, Sean Martin, Richard Masters, and Roderic Parker 2004

Institutional Repositories in the context of Digital Preservation by Paul Wheatley 2004

The Open Archival Information System Reference Model: Introductory Guide by Brian F. Lavoie 2004

Read More

DPC Style Guide

The preferred grammar and usage of the DPC is based on the Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.), though it has some deviations. Referencing is based on the Harvard in-text (or author-date) system. This Style Guide is not exhaustive but provides basic guidelines relevant to ensuring DPC publications remain clear and consistent as possible, acknowledging that digital preservation encompasses a broad range of disciplines with different grammar and usage conventions. If an author is unsure of a point of grammar or usage, they should consult the source guidelines (mentioned above) or clarify with the DPC.   

1. Spelling

  • As a general guide to spelling, DPC prefers the first spelling given in the Oxford English Dictionary. This preference gives priority to certain norms including ‘z’ spellings (for example, ‘digitization’ not ‘digitisation’ and ‘organize’ not ‘organise’), though it provides commonly used exceptions: advertise, advise, analyse, chastise, compromise, improvise, televise. Some other preferred spellings include artefact, medieval, homogeneous, millennium.

  • Foreign place names consistently follow either the anglicized or the country of origin’s form, but not both in the same work.

2. Grammar and Usage

Abbreviations and acronyms:

  • Full stops are used for abbreviations that end in a lowercase letter: p. (page), vol., e.g., i.e., etc., a.k.a., a.m., p.m., Ms., Dr., et al. (‘et’ is not an abbreviation; ‘al.’ is).

  • Full stops are used for initials standing for given names: E. B. White; but are not used for an entire name replaced by initials: JFK.

  • There are no full stops with abbreviations that include two or more capital letters, even if the abbreviation also includes lowercase letters: VP, CEO, MD, PhD, UK, US, NY, and so on.

  • In main text, ‘for example’ and ‘such as’ are used rather than ‘e.g.’. Similarly, ‘that is’ rather than ‘i.e.’, and ‘and so on’ rather than ‘etc’ (although these may be used in tables). A comma precedes ‘e.g.’. Full stops are used in ‘i.e.’, ‘e.g.’ and ‘et al.’.

  • At the first occurrence of an acronym, the full name is spelt out, with the acronym in brackets following it. For example, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). After that, the acronym is used.

  • Page numbers are indicated by ‘p.’ followed by the number for a single page, or ‘pp.’ followed by the page numbers with no space, for example pp.12-21.

Capitalization:

  • Capitals are used sparingly. They are used for proper nouns, titles (including local or central government departments, directorates or sections), and for prefixes forming part of a compound name, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of Edinburgh. Where a prefix or title is used in a general sense, it is lower case, such as ‘a duke’, ‘the president’, ‘county archaeologist’, ‘member’, and so on.

  • The definite article – ‘the’ – is capitalized where it forms part of the name of an organization or institution. The definite article is also capitalized where it forms part of a title of a publication, such as The Boston Globe, or The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods.

  • Parts of geographical names are capitalized when they refer to recognized divisions of a country. For example: Northern Ireland (a political division), but northern Scotland (a general geographical description).

  • Capitals are used for names of institutions and movements, including schools of painting, so that Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Marxism, Colourists and the Church (when it refers to the Christian Church as a whole) are capitalized.

  • Words in the titles of books or exhibitions all have initial capitals, except for words such as ‘it’, ‘and’, and so on.

Contractions:

  • Technology Watch Reports do not use contractions. Words like ‘it’s’ and ‘can’t’ are spelt out in full.

  • For other DPC publications, such as Guidance Notes, contractions are used if preferred by the author, as long as they are consistent. All contractions should be spelt out or all contractions should remain shortened, but not both in the same work.

Quotations:

  • Short quotations are incorporated into the text using single quotation marks, also called inverted commas (following the Oxford style rather than the Chicago Manual of Style). Longer quotations (usually about 100 words or more) are set off from the text by indenting or centring, without quotation marks.

  • Quotations are given exactly as they appear in the original and not altered to conform to DPC Style. If any words are added or omitted, square brackets are inserted to indicate additions, and the mark of an ellipsis (…) for omissions.

  • Some changes are permissible to make a passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text. Single quotation marks may be changed to double, and double to single. The initial letter may be changed to a capital or a lowercase letter. Obvious typographic errors may be corrected silently (without comment).

  • Direct quotations are always indicated through attribution in the referencing system described in the section on References.

  • If a quotation is in a language other than English, it is preferred if the author provides a translation of it so that readers do not miss important content.

Cross references:

  • Embedded cross references within the text are used sparingly because they can only be added at final proof stage. More general references to a chapter or section are preferred.

  • Direct page references (see p.00) are preferred rather than stating ‘on the next page’ or ‘on the previous page’. Page number references will be checked at proof stage. References are made to chapter or section headings and to table and illustration numbers as far as possible. Similarly, references to ‘the table below/above’ are not used, as what appears below/above in the draft may not appear in the same location once typeset.

Dates:

  • Dates are given as in the British sequence: day month year, as in 1 January 2020.

  • Decades are expressed as the 1970s, not 1970’s or ‘70s.

  • Names of months are not contracted, except in figures, tables, or marketing materials for reasons of space.

  • The names of historical periods are usually capitalized, for example: the Middle Ages, the Jurassic, the Holocene, Iron Age, but not medieval.

  • Pairs of dates are usually reduced to their shortest pronounceable form, for example: 1914–18, 1878–79. However, an oblique is used when referring to financial years because they are made up of parts of two calendar years and should be indicated as 2003/04.

Fonts:

  • Fonts will be imposed during typesetting, but authors are encouraged to use Calibri size 10 in the main text and Calibri size 9 for footnotes. Heading fonts and styles will be set in the template as follows:

StyleGuideFontThumb

Footnotes and endnotes:

  • With the sole exception of bibliographic citation for web pages in footnotes, footnotes and endnotes are not used.

  • Other sources have a standard citation in the text to an entry in the References section.

Hyphens:

  • Hyphens are used sparingly but consistently.

  • Compound adjectives are hyphenated, so ‘a nine-year-old-child’, a ‘seventeenth-century document’, but ‘the child was nine years old’, ‘the chair was made in the seventeenth century’.

  • Hyphens are not used between an adverb and part of a verb used adjectivally, for example badly drawn boy, ineptly scripted presentation.

  • Numbers from 21 to 99, and fractions, are hyphenated when written out, for example twenty-one, ninety-nine.

Italics:

  • Italics are used for the names of books, exhibitions, paintings, journals and magazines, newspapers, plays, films, legal cases, epic poems, and ships (although HMS and SS in ships’ names are not italicized).

  • Many words from other languages are commonly italicized, although there is no need to italicize words that are now common in English language usage. For example, vice versa, chic, ersatz, naïve, facade and prima facie do not need to be italicized, although ipso facto, Zeitgeist, ibid., et al. and ad hoc often are.

Lists:

  • Items in a list are separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series of three or more, a comma (called a serial comma or Oxford comma) should appear before the conjunction to prevent ambiguity. For example:

There are several options for storage, such as optical disk, magnetic tape, and cloud storage.

  • If the last element consists of a pair joined by ‘and’, the pair should still be preceded by a serial comma and the first ‘and’. For example:

Best practice for a long-term web archiving programme avoids approaches like print to PDF, screenshots, and copy and paste.

  • A bullet point list containing substantial sentences should have a semi-colon at the end of every bullet point, an ‘and’ following the second-last item in the list, and a full stop at the end of the last item. A lower-case letter follows the bullet point. For example:

His aims were to:

        • research all the commercially available repository systems;

        • compare their functionality and costs;

        • consult the DPC Executive Guide and Business Case Toolkit; and

        • create a business case to present to his management team.

  • There is no need to punctuate if the list consists of single words or short phrases.

Numbers and measurements:

  • In the text, numbers up to ten are spelt out; after that, numerals are used. The exception is when a number starts a sentence, as then it should be written out in full.

  • If a percentage contains a decimal point, as in 5.4%, numerals are used.

  • Numbers from 21 to 99, where spelt out, and fractions, are hyphenated, such as twenty-one and two-thirds.

  • The percentage sign (%) is used in tables, illustrations, and text.

  • A ‘0’ is used in front of decimals. For example: 0.6.

  • The abbreviation ‘No.’ is used for ‘number’.

  • Numerals are used for measurements and weights, for example: 3 metres, 25 km, 4 kg. When citing measurements, use a form that conveys the precision of the measurement, for example: the ditch is 0.85m wide, the brooch is 35mm wide and 87mm long, not the ditch is 850mm wide, the brooch is 0.035m wide and 0.087m long.

  • Numbers from 1,000 onwards use commas as it makes numbers easier to read.

  • Numbers are reduced to the shortest form consistent with clarity. For example: 254–8, 343–7, but 214–18.

Punctuation:

  • DPC Style prefers the British use of single quotation marks, or inverted commas, for speech and direct quotations.

  • For quotes within quotes, or speech within speech, double quotation marks are used.

  • In quotations, the closing quotation mark comes before a final full stop. For example: ‘In most cases, the simplest way to mitigate risks with storage media is to transfer all content into a managed storage system’.

  • The closing quotation mark comes after any punctuation mark that is not a full-stop (such as an exclamation mark) which is part of the text being quoted. For example: Before he opened his mouth, I knew he would say, ‘Digitization is not the same as digital preservation!’.

  • When the quoted speech is interrupted by a reporting verb such as ‘says’ or ‘shouts,’ and so on, the punctuation that divides the sentence is put inside the quotation marks. For example: ‘Development of services for non-technical users has come a long way,’ he argues, ‘making emulation a more viable approach’.

  • If a quoted word or phrase comes at the end of a sentence or coincides with a comma, the punctuation that belongs to the sentence as a whole is placed outside the quotation marks. For example: What is ‘bit rot’?

  • Colons and semi-colons are followed by a lowercase initial letter, except where the colon precedes a quotation or the subtitle of an exhibition or book. For example: Practical Digital Preservation: A how-to guide for organizations of any size

  • Full stops are not used at the end of headings or lists of single words.

  • Ampersands are not used in text but may be used to save space in tables.

  • The % sign is used in tables and captions but spelt out as ‘per cent’ in running text.

3. References

This section gives an overview of how DPC publications acknowledge quotations and references derived from the work of other individuals and institutions. DPC prefers the Harvard (or author-date) system of referencing. Glasgow Caledonian University Library provides a useful guide to the Harvard referencing system for further reference.[1]

In simple terms, the author, publication date (and where appropriate page number) references are given in the text and a full reference given in the list of references at the end of the publication. For example:

Experienced professionals (Brown, 2013, p.36) emphasize the importance of using real examples of digital assets at risk when presenting a business case.

If the author’s name forms part of the sentence, it is not repeated in the reference. For example:

Brown (2013) argues that ‘the benefits of ensuring their preservation, and the consequential impact arising from their loss, can then be measured in terms that will resonate most strongly with the organisation’.

If the author published more than one work in a year, publications are labelled (2014a) and so on. If more than one work by the same author is included in a reference, it appears as (2014a, b). Citations of references with three or more authors give all the authors at the first instance. For example: (Williams, Burnap, and Sloan, 2017) shortened to (Williams et al., 2017) thereafter.

When citing unpublished material, if the reader will be able to obtain the material without too much difficulty (for example, a thesis lodged at a university), a reference is included, preferably with a DOI or URL. If the material is in preparation or in press, but confirmed as accepted for publication, as much information about the source of the material is given and the entry marked as ‘forthcoming’.

All references within the text appear in the References section in Harvard format. References are listed in alphabetical order by author surname, with titles by the same author listed chronologically. Works by the author individually are listed before works co-written or works which the author has edited. Joint works are listed alphabetically by second author.

When an association, agency, or organization has produced the publication, and no author’s name appears on the title page, the name of the organization usually acts as the author for in-text references and the References section at the end of the work. Where a work has a compiling editor or editors rather than an author, the text reference is (Brown and Thomson, Eds, 2003). References to two or more works given together are separated by semicolons, for example (Brown and Thomson, 2003; Brown and Smith, 2004).

Full bibliographical references should appear as the following examples:

A book:

Harvey, R. and Weatherburn, J. (2018) Preserving Digital Materials. 3rd edn. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

An eBook:

Driscoll, M.J. and Pierazzo, E. (eds.) (2016) Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices. Available at: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-238-7/contents.xhtml. DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0095.

An eJournal article:

Williams, M.L., Burnap, P., and Sloan, L. (2017) ‘Towards an Ethical Framework for Publishing Twitter Data in Social Research: Taking into Account Users' Views, Online Context and Algorithmic Estimation’, Sociology 51(6), pp.1149-68. Available at:  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038038517708140. DOI: 10.1177/0038038517708140.

Web resources:

In line with best practice in digital preservation and scholarly citation, DPC prefers that URLs referenced in publications include a persistent link or an archived web page, wherever possible. The in-text reference to a web resource should link to the live web. In the References at the end of the work, authors should provide a persistent link, such as a Robust Link, DOI, or the most concurrent capture of a web resource in a national or international web archive, such as the Internet Archive[2] or UK Web Archive[3]. Some web archives provide their own guidance on how to cite one of their resources. Authors can find further guidance on citing archived web content from the UK Government Web Archive[4], the Bodleian Libraries’ Web Archive[5], and the National Records of Scotland Web Archive[6].

Web pages with no author:

In-text citation: FFmpeg is an important tool for preserving audiovisual materials but requires users to have a grasp of the command line interface (ffmprovisr, 2019)1.

1ffmprovisr: https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/

References section:

ffmprovisr (2019) Available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20191223211508/https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/ (Wayback Machine capture from 23 December 2019, accessed 19 February 2020).

If a DOI or archived version of the web page does not exist, it can be referenced:

References: ffmprovisr (2019) Available at: https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/ (Accessed 19 February 2020).

Web pages that do not already exist in a web archive can be nominated to one of a number of different services, including the UK Web Archive’s ‘Save a UK Website’[7] and the Internet Archive’s ‘Save Page Now’[8].

4. Other Inclusions

Appendices:

These are included if they provide access to details that are too bulky or repetitive to include in the main text. Appendices are numbered consecutively, included in tables of content, and referenced numerically from within the text, for example (see Appendix A).

Further reading:

All sources provided in this section follow the style of the references but may contain short annotations or a brief description of the contents of the resource by the author.

 

DPC acknowledges the generous assistance of Susan Pacitti (Glasgow Museums) in preparing this document.

 

[1] Glasgow Caledonian University Library, Subject help, Harvard referencing: https://web.archive.org/web/20171015040109/http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/subjecthelp/referencing/harvardreferencing/ (Wayback Machine capture from 15 October 2017)

[2] Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/web/

[3] UK Web Archive: https://www.webarchive.org.uk/

[4] UK Government Web Archive Guidance to citing archived web pages: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/citing-records-national-archives/#section8

[5] Bodleian Libraries’ Web Archive guidance: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/web-archives

[6] National Records of Scotland Web Archive: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/researching-online/the-nrs-web-continuity-service/guidance-on-copyright-and-re-use-of-nrs-web-archive-content

[7] UK Web Archive, Save a UK website: https://www.webarchive.org.uk/en/ukwa/nominate

[8] Internet Archive, Save Page Now: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360001513491-Save-Pages-in-the-Wayback-Machine

Read More

WAPWG Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Web Archiving and Preservation Working Group (WAPWG) Bulletin Board.

This is an area for DPC Members to share and discover information about web archiving and preservation.

Read More

Dedicated Support for Full Members

Full DPC members can use this page to learn about and discover how to access the 5 days per year of dedicated support time to which they are entitled

What kind of work can we help you with?

That depends on exactly what it is you're after, and we're more than happy to discuss the possibilities with you. We have worked on a really broad cross section of activities with our members, from in depth technical challenges to advising on the most appropriate training courses available, through to building the case for digital preservation within a department or organisation. With newer members, who are only just embarking on establishing a digital preservation capability, we often focus on activities such as: reviewing and honing business cases, developing and reviewing preservation policies, and developing and reviewing requirements for preservation system procurement exercises. Small injections of DPC expertise can often be invaluable as organisations take their first steps in digital preservation. With our more established members, we may tackle more organisation specific, and often subject specific challenges.

Note that our support can be one to one with the full member organisation, or we can work collaboratively (for example via a cross member working group), which can sometimes be an excellent use of limited resources, and one that exploits the vast wealth of knowledge across the Coalition. If a challenge is raised that is likely to have a broader interest, it may be worth exploring it further with a DPC Briefing Day, or writing it up as a Technology Watch Guidance Note.

Our expertise

Dedicated support for our members is faciliated by the DPC Team who have combined experience of many decades of working in digital preservation and advising organisations in solving digital preservation challenges. This experience is invaluable in supporting members, but is backed by an unrivalled depth of knowledge and expertise across the Coalition, which we can tap into to help you get the job done well.

Where do I start?

Every DPC Member is allocated a DPC Champion when they join the DPC. Your Champion is a member of the DPC staff who acts as a first point of contact with the DPC. If you're interested in arranging some dedicated support time, begin by contacting your champion with a short summary of the challenge you are facing. Your Champion will be able to consult with the wider DPC Team and then plan in the support you need. Contact details for the DPC Team can be found here. It should be noted that with a small core staff, our time is limited. Any dedicated support is subject to DPC staff availability. We would appreciate as much warning as possible for requests for dedicated support but will do our very best to meet your needs.

For more on the other sources of assistance available, see our Looking for Advice page.

 

 

Read More

DPC Technology Watch Publications

Technology Watch DPC Technology Watch publications provide authoritative guidance on a variety of digital preservation topics chosen by Coalition members. They are designed to inform our membership, and those in the wider community, in an accessible and easily digestible manner. 

 

 

Most Recent

 

 

Preserving Digital ArtPreserving Digital Art

by Patrícia Falcão 2024 

Guidance Note 

Environmental Impact Thumbnail Environmental Impact and Digital Preservation

by Eira Tansey 2024 

Guidance Note 

PID Thumbnail Choosing a Persistent Identifier Type for Your Digital Objects (v 1.1) 

by Remco van Veenendaal 2023 

Guidance Note 

 

Reports

Technology Watch Reports provide in depth reference guides to specific content or data types. They are peer reviewed and are typically around 40 pages in length.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guidance Notes

Guidance Notes provide bite-sized overviews of specific digital preservation challenges and solutions. They combine accessibility with practical guidance and are between 2 and 5 pages in length. 

Topical Notes Series

NAI bannerTopical notes address key digital preservation issues for a non-specialist audience and were developed with the support of the National Archives of Ireland to inform record creators.

 Older or superseded Technology Watch Publications can be found here.

DPC Style Guide

StyleGuideCoverThumb The DPC Style Guide provides an overview of the preferred grammar and usage for Technology Watch Reports. It provides basic guidelines relevant to ensuring DPC publications remain clear and consistent as possible, acknowledging that digital preservation encompasses a broad range of disciplines with different grammar and usage conventions.

 

Save

Save

Read More

Scroll to top