As part of its strategic commitments to workforce development, the DPC undertakes studies on the digital preservation labour market, analyzing data gathered from online job advertisements. The main objective of these analyses is to facilitate recruitment, staff management, and career development of DPC members by capturing and sharing information specific to the digital preservation labour market, using what is found to help develop and shape the outputs of the DPC Workforce Development program. By sharing the information gathered through the analyses more widely, the DPC aims to facilitate the knowledge and development of those in the digital preservation field and invite further discussion and practical use by digital preservation practitioners.

DPC Labour Market Analysis Resources

The following resources are available for reference or use by the wider digital preservation community.

• The DPC Summary Report on the 2021-2022 Digital Preservation Labour Market and accompanying Dataset

• The previous 2020 DPC Labour Market Analysis Summary Report

These resources are made available for use and reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. In summary, this means they can be freely shared and adapted as long as proper attribution is made, that it is for non-commercial purposes, and any resources that remix, transform, or build upon the content carry the same license, allowing reuse.

Acknowledgements

The DPC Labour Market analyses build on and draw from previous research and work including, but not limited to, the DigCurV lenses and the DigCCur Curriculum Matrix, NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation and NDSA Staffing Survey reports, University of Maine Digital Curation market analyses, as well as the DPC Rapid Assessment Model and DPC Competency Framework, Audit Toolkit and example role descriptions. Thanks also go to colleagues within the DPC team and members of the DPC's Workforce Development Sub-Committee for their support, feedback, insights, and encouragement during the development of the research and report.

Feedback and Review

The DPC is committed to the ongoing support and development of the Labour Market analysis. We welcome feedback on all DPC resources and incorporate from the digital preservation community. All feedback received will be carefully considered, with input from the DPC Workforce Development Sub-Committee, for the next labour market analysis planned for 2025-2026. To provide feedback, please email info@dpconline.org.

This page describes two of the key roles required to facilitate the Python Study Group (PSG) program. Each includes a person description, details of the time commitment, and the responsibilities that are included within the role. 

Governance Group Member

The Python Study Group governance group will meet two times a year, with ad hoc meetings as needed, to conduct oversight of the Python Study Groups program. 

The governance group will comprise six total members: five voting representatives and one non-voting DPC staff member who will fulfil an administrative role. Of the voting members, at least one will be a member of staff of the DPC and another a staff or committee member of the BCC. The remaining three voting members are open to participants in the Python Study Group program community who are members of DPC or BCC. Ideally, at least one member will be/have been a participant in the program and one member will be/have been a mentor.

Person Description

Volunteers for the PSG governance group will:

• Be a digital preservation practitioner or program manager in good standing within the community.

• Have an interest in the use of Python to facilitate digital preservation activities

  • Practical coding skills are not a requirement.

• Have an interest in or knowledge of education and/or professional development, particularly in relation to technical skills. 

• Be community minded, collaborative, and committed to increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion within digital preservation.

Time Commitment

It is expected that participation in the governance group will involve a maximum of 10-15 hours a year. Members are expected to commit to participating in the group for a minimum of a year.

Responsibilities:

• Attendance at virtual biannual governance group meetings, and ad hoc meetings as required

• Participate in the resolution of any Code of Conduct violations or other violations of the Terms of Reference

• Contribute to the administration of annual evaluations of the Python Study Group program

• Make recommendations on programmatic changes based on feedback received

• Participate in subcommittees as needed, e.g. an every-other-year curriculum review committee

• Contribute to strategic planning for the Python Study Groups program

• Help steward the Python Study Groups GitHub repositories, particularly through content management

Study Group Mentor

Although it is hoped that study groups will be largely self-driven, it will be useful for participants to be able to consult with experienced practitioners from time to time. This might be to ask advice on a particular approach or for help when having issues with a script. For this reason, the PSG program hopes to recruit a small team of volunteer mentors to help support participants in their learning.

Mentors will provide support to study group participants in two forms:

• By being available during study group meetings to drop-in to groups who require advice. 

• By responding to pull requests posted by participants on the PSG GitHub repository detailing coding issues they are experiencing.

Particular responsibilities will be assigned after recruitment, to be determined by the number of mentors recruited and their task preferences.

Person Description

PSG Mentors will:

• Be a digital preservation practitioner or program manager in good standing within the community.

• Be proficient in coding with Python.

• Have experience of utilizing Python to complete digital preservation tasks.

• Be familiar with GitHub.

• Have an interest in or knowledge of skills development. 

• Be community minded, collaborative, and committed to increasing equity, diversity, and inclusion within digital preservation.

Time Commitment

The time commitment required from PSG mentors is somewhat dependent on the number of mentors the program is able to recruit. However, it is expected that acting as a PSG Mentor will involve a commitment of around 10 hours a PSG cycle (6 months). Mentors are expected to commit to participating in the PSG program for a minimum of one cycle.

Responsibilities:

• Attend a mentor briefing meeting at the beginning of each PSG program cycle

• Attend PSG meetings as required based on an agreed rota (no more than one a month)

  • Provide guidance on python coding to participants at PSG meetings when requested

• Respond to pull requests on the PSG GitHub as required based on an agreed rota of availability

  • Guidance may include problem solving and/or feedback on scripts posted by participants

• Provide feedback to the governance group on the PSG program at the end of each cycle

The DPC’s Reading Club provides a forum to chat about a recent digital preservation publication with other Members in a friendly and informal group. Established in 2023, sessions typically run on a monthly basis in a variety of different time zones and cover reading on a range of topics relevant to digital preservation.

Why Reading Club?

Digital preservation is an ever changing discipline, and it can be hard to keep up with new developments and publications relevant to our work. DPC’s Reading Club provides a useful signpost to a recently published article and the opportunity to chat about it informally with your peers. This can be a helpful way of maintaining a connection with current digital preservation literature when in a busy and demanding role with limited time for research. Reading Club could also be considered to be a part of your own Continuous Professional Development.

Come along to an event

Reading Club is open to all DPC Members, but places are limited to enable small group discussion. Keep an eye on our events page and weekly digest email on the DPC-DISCUSSION mailing list to find out what we are reading next and when we will be meeting to discuss it. You don’t have to come along to every session, just join in when it suits you. Most of our Reading Club events are held online. 

Suggest something for us to read

We are always happy to receive suggestions of publications to read for these events. Note that we prefer to read articles, book chapters or blog posts that are:

• Relevant to digital preservation

• Thought provoking

• No more than 40 pages in length

• Freely available for all to access online

• Recent - i.e. published (or made openly available) in the last three years

Do get in touch with Jenny.Mitcham@dpconline.org with ideas, comments and suggestions.

Reading list

Missed a Reading Club event? Don’t worry, we maintain a list of all the articles and publications we have read below (ordered by event date). Do dive in and catch up on what we’ve been reading in your own time:

• December 2024: Schaefer, S. (2024), "Energy, Digital Preservation, and the Climate: Proactively Planning for an Uncertain Future", iPRES 2024: https://ipres2024.pubpub.org/pub/1sm257xx/release/2

• November 2024: Altman, M and Landau, R (2024), "Selecting Efficient and Reliable Preservation Strategies: Modeling Long-term Information Integrity Using Large-scale Hierarchical Discrete Event Simulation". International Journal of Digital Curation, Vol. 18, No. 1 https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v18i1.743

• October 2024: Frank, R.D. (2024), "Constructing risk in trustworthy digital repositories", Journal of Documentation - open access copy available here: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/194298

• September 2024: Dentler, J., Jaillant, L., Foliard, D. and Schuh, J., 'Sensitivity and Access: Unlocking the Colonial Visual Archive with Machine Learning' Digital Humanities Quarterly, Volume 18, Number 3 (July 2024) https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/18/2/000742/000742.html

• August 2024: Andrews, N. IT’S NOT IMPOSTER SYNDROME: RESISTING SELF-DOUBT AS NORMAL FOR LIBRARY WORKERS, In the Library with the Lead Pipe (June 2020) https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2020/its-not-imposter-syndrome/

• July 2024: Owens, T (2024). After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory, University of Michigan Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12410213 (Chapter 3 - ‘Where Data Drives’ pp.43-78).

• June 2024:  Vaarzon-Morel, P., Barwick, L., & Green, J. (2021). Sharing and storing digital cultural records in Central Australian Indigenous communities. New Media & Society, 23(4), 692-714. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820954201

• May 2024: Déirdre Joyce; Laurel McPhee; Rita Johnston; Julia Corrin; Rebecca Hirsch (2022), "Toward a Conceptual Framework for Technical Debt in Archives", The American Archivist 85 (1), 104 - 125, https://doi.org/10.17723/2327-9702-85.1.104 

• April 2024: British Library cyber incident review paper (2024), https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf.

• March 2024: Lise Jaillant and Katherine Aske, (2024), "Are Users of Digital Archives Ready for the AI Era? Obstacles to the Application of Computational Research Methods and New Opportunities", Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (Volume 16 Issue 4), https://doi.org/10.1145/3631125

• February 2024: Sam Alloing (2023), "MONITORING FILE FORMAT OBSOLESCENCE IN REPOSITORIES: An applied method", iPres 2023 https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121117

• Janaury 2024: Daniel Steinmeier (2023), "BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CAMPAIGN FOR: How formal organization practice may negatively impact adaptability aspects of preservation", iPres 2023 https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121088

• December 2023: Sophia van Hoek (2023), "Walking a tightrope across the gap of digital preservation and environmental sustainability: The National Archives of the Netherlands and the challenge of achieving a climate-neutral digital archive", https://kia.pleio.nl/attachment/entity/931f65cb-2058-4fe9-a500-99bc53dfde40

• November 2023: Kieran Hegarty (2022), "Representing Biases, Inequalities and Silences in National Web Archives: Social, Material and Technical Dimensions", Archives & Manuscripts, 50(1) https://doi.org/10.37683/asa.v50.10209

• October 2023: James Cummings (2023), "Academics Retire and Servers Die: Adventures in the Hosting and Storage of Digital Humanities Projects", Digital Humanities Quarterly, Vol 17 No 2. http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/1/000669/000669.html

• September 2023: Venkata, S. K., Young, P., Bell, M. and Green, A. (2021), "Alexa, is this a historical record?", Journal of computing and cultural heritage, Vol. 15 Issue 1, Available from https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/our-research-and-academic-collaboration/our-research-projects/open-access-research-from-our-staff/alexa-is-this-a-historical-record/

• August 2023: Anderson, T., Colón, R.D., Goben, A. and Karcher, S. (2022), "Curating for Accessibility", International Journal of Digital Curation, Vol. 17 No. 1, http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/837

• July 2023: Cushing, A.L. and Osti, G. (2023), "“So how do we balance all of these needs?”: how the concept of AI technology impacts digital archival expertise", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 79 No. 7, pp. 12-29. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2022-0170 (read a blog post about this Reading Club session here)

• June 2023: Jaillant, L. (2022) “More Data, Less Process: A User-Centered Approach to Email and Born-Digital Archives” The American Archivist Vol. 85, Issue 2. Available at https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/More_data_less_process_a_user-centered_approach_to_email_and_born-digital_archives/16560135

• May 2023: Monique Lassere and Jess M. Whyte (2021), Balancing Care and Authenticity in Digital Collections: A Radical Empathy Approach to Working with Disk Images, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies (2021) https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v3i2.125 (read a blog post about this Reading Club session here)

• April 2023: Thorsten Ries (2022), Digital history and born-digital archives: the importance of forensic methods, Journal of the British Academy, volume 10: https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/010.157 (read a blog post about this Reading Club session here)

Find all the Reading Club blog posts here.

The Python Study Group Program

Effective digital preservation needs ongoing, continuous development of various skills. In particular, scripting and coding skills are necessary to effectively support and develop digital preservation tasks and workflows. Despite this recognized need, digital preservation practitioners often describe this as a gap in their skillset and point to difficulties to identify relevant training opportunities for developing these skills to the extent that they can be practically and meaningfully used. 

The main purpose of the BitCurator Consortium (BCC) and Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Python Study Group (PSG) program is to provide a regular and effective training program and community of learning focused on the development of scripting and coding skills, which can be practically and meaningfully applied to digital preservation activities and workflows.   

The main aims of the program are to:

• Support the community

• Develop skills

• Build capacity

• Collaborate

Two Python Study Group Launch and Information Sessions took place on the 17th/18th of October (recording available below). 

How can I get involved?

The Python Study Groups welcome participation from BCC and DPC members as well as the broader digital preservation community.

A new cycle of study groups will run from June 2024 to December 2024. If you're interested in participating, please complete the Expression of Interest Form here by June 28th.

Please note that to keep numbers manageable, there will be a finite number of places in the study groups. There will be priority places set aside for DPC and BCC members as well as a limited number of places for those who are not currently members of these organizations (see Python Study Group Terms of Reference ).

More about Program Mentors and Governance Group Members

There are different ways to participate in the Python Study Groups Program! You can join one of the study groups as a participant, learning more about Python, or you can help form the program by becoming a Governance Group Member. We are also actively seeking Program Mentors to help support study groups.

Read more about the different roles.

Terms of Reference 

Python Study Group Terms of Reference

____________________________________________________________________________

The DPC is pleased to announce it is offering ten Career Development Fund (CDF) travel grants to support DPC Members attending the iPres 2022 conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, 12^th-16^th September 2022. These grants will contribute funding to help with the costs of travel and accommodation for DPC Members attending the conference in-person. Details of the grants are provided below.

2022 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the DPC.  To mark this, the DPC is sponsoring participation in iPres for its entire membership around the world.

The Executive Board has set aside funds to meet the registration fee for one in-person conference delegate from every DPC member. This unique offer is designed to ensure a wide representation of the DPC community at the conference, especially by those who would not otherwise be able to participate. This offer is made in good faith to add value and expanding participation. It should not substitute existing budgets.  Where in-person attendance is impossible, online attendance can be substituted.

Find out more about the benefits of the DPC Career Development Fund from previous grant recipients...

The following blog posts and outputs from previous DPC grant recipients, arranged by the name of the event or course, provide information and reflections on the knowledge or skills learned from the funded opportunity.

Aberystwyth University Department of Information Studies (DIS) Short Courses 

• Tom Ruane (2020): At the British Library Sound Archive: an overview of audio data preservation 

Archives and Records Association (ARA) UK & Ireland Annual Conference 

• Rosie Dyson (2024): Sustainable approaches to digital preservation at ARA2024
• Janina Ziesche (2021): Marketing Records Management and Digital Preservation – Approaches to Advocacy at the ARA 2021 Virtual Conference 
• Jessica Hooley (2021): Reflecting on the ARA 2021 Conference as an Archives & Records Management Student

Australian Museum and Gallery Association’s (AMaGA) Conference

• Liz Long (2023): Leaning into discomfort at AMaGA 2023 

Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) Annual Conference

• Joyce Wong (2023): Rising to our Challenges as a Community - ASA 2023
• Natalie Anderson (2022): ASA 2022 - NFSA: Evolving Identity and Emerging Technologies
• Andrea Walker (2021): The ASA 2021 Conference: Some Reflections and Highlights from a Virtual Attendee

Birkbeck University of London Certificate in Applied Data Science

• Jacob Bickford (2021): Providing computational access to the Polytechnic Magazine (1879 to 1960) 

Digital Preservation Training Programme (DPTP) and DPTP Online Course

• Rachael Muir (2019): Reflections on the Digital Preservation Training Programme 
• Chris Loftus (2017): DPTP Migration of file formats; understanding loss and how to manage it
• Short interviews with 2011 grant recipients who attended the Digital Preservation Training Programme

Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities (DCDC) Conference  

• Emma Burgham (2023): DCDC 2023 – Radical Reimagining
• Adrian Clark (2022): DCDC 2022 - Inclusive, Diverse, Collections for the Future - now!
• Yi-Ting Lin (2022): DCDC 2022 - The Future Landscape of Digital Archives
• Shalen Fu (2021): DCDC21: Transforming crisis into opportunity within the GLAMA sectors
• Carrie Marks (2021): Digital Loans and Virtual Visitors

Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF) Film Restoration Summer School

• Natalia Bianchi (2022): Notes After Attending the 2022 FIAF Film Restoration Summer School

Fédération Internationale des Archives de Télévision / The International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) World Conference

• Thandokazi Maceba (2022): Reimagining the digital preservation workflows of Archives - FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2022

Information and Records Management Society (IRMS) Conference

• Bridie-Ann Carr (2023): IRMS2023 Conference – Digital preservation dreams and the shared drive nightmare

International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES)

• Lukas Hechenblaickner (2024): iPRES 2024 - Meeting the Digital Preservation Community - Impressions of a first-time attendee
• Delaney Sweep (2024): The Difficulty with Art: Reflections on the iPRES 2024 session “Preserving Works of Art”
• Taryn Ellis (2023): Musings on the iPres 2023 Panel, “Policies, Risks and Strategies: A File Format Debate”
• Emily Clarke (2023): WDPD, iPRES 2023 and Digital Preservation: A Concerted Effort
• Ailie O'Hagan (2023): Digital Preservation Soup
• Elisabeth Thurlow (2019): iPres 2019: Making Emulation Accessible and iPres 2019: Preserving the people in digital preservation
• Elizabeth Kata (2019): Finding the Cutting Edge in Common Formats
• Leontien Talboom (2019): iPres 2019 session - NEW HORIZONS // Web Archiving and iPres 2019 session - NEW HORIZONS // Access & FAIR
• Kirsty Fairclough (2019): iPRES 2019 // Whose Digital Preservation? Locating our Standpoints to Reallocate Resources and iPRES2019 // Sad by Design: Politics and Psychology of the Social Media Age
• John Pelan (2019): iPres 2019: A roundup
• Jaana Pinnick (2019): iPres 2019 New Horizons Panel – Sustaining Digital Preservation in the Nuclear Field
• Colin Armstrong (2018): Taking Stock after 15 years Panel at iPres 2018 and Web Preservation at iPRES 2018
• Alexander Roberts (2018): Variation in national digital preservation policies and The 'Capstone' email appraisal approach
• Chris Fryer (2017): Data management at iPRES 2017
• Jaye Weatherburn (2017): Preservation storage workshop at iPres 2017 and Acquisition and Appraisal at iPres2017
• Louise Lawson (2017): Emulation and Software Preservation at iPres 2017 and FAIR Data in Trustworthy Data Repositories at iPres 2017
• Paul Young (2016): iPRES 2016 Blog - Panel: Software Sustainability and Preservation

International Conference on FAIR Digital Objects (FDO)

• Zoë Hollingworth (2022): FAIR Digital Objects 2022 Conference – Challenges with terminology 
• Louise Preston (2022): FDO2022 Conference – human and social factors in data and metadata management

International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC)

• Zoe Warner (2022): IDCC 2022 - Digital Preservation and Reuse: You can’t have one without the other
• Thandokazi Maceba (2021): IDCC21/RDAVP17: An out of this world data curation and digital preservation experience
• Iram Safdar (2021): IDCC21 Keynote: Indigenous Sovereignty of Language Data – The Mãori Example
• Evanthia Samaras (2021): An eye-opening opportunity: Report from the 16th International Digital Curation Conference
• Alexandra Mitchell (2020): IDCC Keynote: The Internet of Things and IDCC Session: Selecting efficient and reliable preservation strategies
• Hannah Smith (2020): IDCC 2020 Dublin - ‘Identifying Opportunities for Collective Curation During Archaeological Excavations' and IDCC Session: ‘Long-term data preservation data lifecycle, standardisation process, implementation and lessons learned’, Iolanda Maggio
• Judith Carr (2020): IDCC 2020: Becoming the ‘new normal’ is a good thing, but it is going to take time and IDCC 2020: Do we need to agree on how to say potato
• Clare Mulhall (2018): Notes from IDCC 2018 - Day One and Notes from IDCC 2018 - Day Two
• Odile Dumbleton (2017): International Digital Curation Conference 2017 Edinburgh

International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) Web Archiving Conference (WAC)

• Ndahambelela Hertha Iipinge (2024): Reflections on my first IIPC WAC, Paris 2024
• Barbara Fuentes (2023): IIPCWAC23 – The ’Crème de la Crème of’ Web Archiving work
• Dorota Minkiewicz (2023): Where long-term preservation and web archives meet - IIPC WAC 2023

No Time To Wait Symposium Conference, MediaArea

• Elizabeth Thompson-MacRae (2024): Future Present, Future Past – NTTW8 in Karlsruhe
• Mzodidi Tutuka (2023): Exploring the Frontiers of Digital Preservation: Insights from the NTTW7 Conference in Prague
• Nigel Bryant (2022): Tapping the (Open) Source – No Time To Wait 2022

Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) Digital Directions Conference

• Amy Ibbotson (2023): Digital Directions – providing direction and reflection
• Angélique Bonamy (2023): Take-aways from NEDCC Digital Directions 2023: Inclusive online training for anyone working with digital collections
• Mzodidi Tutuka (2022): Reflections Following an Online Training Conference: 2022 NEDCC Digital Directions
• Ruth Schieferstein (2022): Digital Directions: Insights from a Virtual Conference
• Fabi Barticioti (2022): Digital Directions: A whistle stop into the NEDCC's annual conference
• Megan Joyce (2020): NEDCC Digital Directions Conference 2020 – “Digital preservation is technology enabled but human driven”

Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) Conference

• Rachel Tropea (2019): PASIG 2019, 12-14 Feb, El Colegio de México, Mexico City (part 1) and PASIG 2019, 12-14 Feb, El Colegio de México, Mexico City (part 2)
• Matthew Zawadzki (2017): Reflections on PASIG 2017, Oxford
• Simon Whibley (2017): PASIG 2017 - A Twitter Retelling

PV Ensuring long-term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data Conference

• Nick Bywell (2023): PV2023 Conference - Notes on the preservation and dissemination of data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN 

Research Data Management Forum (RDMF), Digital Curation Centre

• Fatima Darries (2021): Reporting on RDMF21: Data Stewardship in Research Institutions

Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) Archiving Conference

• Paul Shields (2023): IS&T Archiving 2023 – Notes on two emerging imaging and archiving threads
• Gemma Evans (2022): Reflections on Imaging, Visualisation and Artificial Intelligence from the IS&T Archiving 2022 Conference
• Caroline Lebre (2021): Back to basics at IS&T Archiving 2021: Tailoring Quality Assurance Workflows to your Digitisation Project
• Annette Le Roux (2021): Reflections on Operation Night Watch: the largest research and conservation project of one of Rembrandt’s finest works

Winter School for Audio-visual Archiving

• Ivan Dimitrovski (2020): Winter School for Audio-Visual Archiving 2020
• Sally Cholewa (2020): A day in the life of a Winter School for Audio-visual Archiving participant

Digital Futures Academy

• Short interviews with candidates sponsored by the DPC to attend Digital Futures Academy in 2012

Call for Contributions!

Previous DPC Career Development Fund (and Leadership Programme) recipients are invited to share what they learned from past funded opportunities. If you would like to share any relevant outputs (e.g. blog posts, case studies, reports) to add to this page, please email DPC Training & Grants Manager, Amy Currie, amy.currie[at]dpconline.org

---

Acknowledgements

The Career Development Fund is sponsored by the DPC’s Supporters, who recognize the benefit and seek to support a connected and trained digital preservation workforce. We gratefully acknowledge their financial support of this programme and ask applicants to acknowledge that support in any communications that result. At the time of writing, the Career Development Fund is supported by Arkivum, Artefactual Systems Inc., boxxe, Cerabyte, Evolved Binary, Ex Libris, Iron Mountain, Libnova, Max Communications, Preservica, and Simon P Wilson. A full list of supporters is online here.

Upcoming Career Development Fund Grants

Below is a list of planned advertised grant opportunities. Announcements for these grants are published via Calls for Applicants on the DPC News page. Applications are welcomed from all DPC Members and Affiliates (see individual announcements for eligibility information).

 *New information will be updated as soon as various announcements are made.

Interested in an opportunity not listed above?

Full and Associate DPC Members are also welcome to apply for a Member Self-Identified Opportunity grant to attend a training and development opportunity that they believe will help build digital preservation capacity within their organization. Details on the eligibility of opportunities for these grants, application process and deadlines are available in the Career Development Fund Application Guidelines.

Additionally, the DPC also invites training providers to discuss the possibility and appropriateness of offering Career Development Fund grants for such opportunities by contacting the Training & Grants Manager (Amy Currie, amy.currie[at]dpconline.org)

Acknowledgements

The Career Development Fund is sponsored by the DPC’s Supporters, who recognize the benefit and seek to support a connected and trained digital preservation workforce. We gratefully acknowledge their financial support of this programme and ask applicants to acknowledge that support in any communications that result. At the time of writing, the Career Development Fund is supported by Arkivum, Artefactual Systems Inc., boxxe, Cerabyte, Evolved Binary, Ex Libris, Iron Mountain, Libnova, Max Communications, Preservica, and Simon P Wilson. A full list of supporters is online here.

Download a PDF copy of the Career Development Fund Application Guidelines 

Introduction

The DPC recognizes the very great need among our members for access to specialist training and professional development opportunities. The DPC Career Development Fund (previously known as the Leadership Programme) was created to offer an ongoing programme of grants so that our members can attend courses, events, or other training and development opportunities that will help them build digital preservation capacity at their organization. It is generously sponsored by the DPC Supporters. Over the course of its lifetime, it has provided over 200 grants for members.

DPC Members can access Career Development Fund grants in two ways:

1. Advertised Calls. The DPC publishes periodic calls for applications to attend events, courses and other development opportunities that have been selected for inclusion in the programme and approved by the Workforce Development Sub-Committee.

2. Member Self-Identified Opportunities. Members can submit an application for any development opportunity they have identified and believe will help build digital preservation capacity within their organization.

In addition, the DPC seeks to reduce the risks that training providers face when developing and providing courses and development opportunities relevant to digital preservation. The DPC invites training providers to discuss the possibility and appropriateness of offering Career Development Fund grants for such opportunities.

Career Development Fund grants are only available to DPC Members, including prospective members whose request to join is approved by the relevant grant application deadline. A full list of DPC Members is on the website at http://www.dpconline.org/members/list-of-members.

Further details about eligibility, criteria, and conditions for these two types of Career Development Fund grants are provided in the sections below. Applicants are encouraged to contact the DPC Training and Grants Manager (Amy Currie, amy.currie[at]dpconline.org) should any questions arise.

Guidelines for Advertised Calls

The DPC publishes periodic calls for applications to attend events, courses and other development opportunities that have been selected for inclusion in the programme and approved by the Workforce Development Sub-Committee. These grants for Advertised Calls are published via the DPC News page and listed on the DPC Grant Calendar page.

Funding Available

Funding levels will be stated in the published advertised call on the DPC News page. In the majority of cases, the grant will provide funding to help with expenses incurred in attending the opportunity. This may be used towards any one or all of the following expenses:

• Course fees or event registration costs [online or in-person]
• Hotel booking for multi-day courses or development opportunities [in-person, based on preferred hotels list provided by organizers]
• Contribution towards travel expenses [in-person]

The amount of funding is at the discretion of the review panel and will be explicitly stated in the grant offer letter to successful applicants.

Eligibility

Grant applications for Advertised Calls are invited from officers, staff and affiliates of the organizations listed as members of the DPC on the Coalition’s website, and prospective members whose request to join is approved by the relevant grant application deadline.

Please note that only one application can be made per DPC Member per advertised grant opportunity. The main DPC Member contact will have final approval for who may submit an application on behalf of their organization, and applicants should take steps to ensure they are not inadvertently competing with colleagues.

Individuals associated with consortia or funded through agencies that are members of the DPC are eligible. However, they must confirm their application with the main DPC contact within the agency before applying. The DPC may pass the details of applications to the main DPC contact within these organizations as part of their assessment.

Applicants must be employed or associated with the DPC member organization/consortia/agency during the time of the grant opportunity (e.g. a fixed-term contract covering the time period in which the course or event will take place, commitment from the organization to meet any additional costs incurred).

Honorary Personal Members of the DPC are also eligible to apply for these grants.

Allied Organizations are not eligible to apply for these grants.

Guidelines for Member Self-Identified Opportunities

The DPC has extended the Career Development Fund to allow DPC Members to apply for grants to attend training and development opportunities they have self-identified to address specific training needs. 

These grants are available to DPC Members to help meet their own particular development needs. Those interested in applying for one of the grants should refer to the following guidelines for eligible courses or development opportunities:

• Grants for the course or opportunity should not currently be offered by the Career Development Fund. Please contact the Training and Grants Manager if you are unsure.

• Opportunities need not focus on digital preservation topics. Topics that are adjacent to digital preservation or cover the more generic skills identified in the DPC Competency Framework are acceptable. Applicants need only demonstrate how the opportunity will directly benefit their organization’s digital preservation activities.

• Applications are particularly encouraged for grants that will enable early years’ professionals or junior members of staff to participate in development opportunities such as presenting papers or posters at a conference.

• Grants are not available to support activities such as work shadowing or staff exchanges.

Applications are received on a rolling basis but must be received at least 10 weeks before the registration deadline of the proposed activity. 

Funding Available

The amount of funding offered to successful applicants is at the discretion of the grant review panel. Please note that there is a £1500 maximum limit for funding; no member self-identified grant will exceed £1500, and the amount of funding offered will be explicitly stated in a grant offer letter to successful applicants.

Eligibility

Grant applications for Member Self-Identified Opportunities are invited from officers, staff and affiliates of the organizations listed as Full or Associate DPC Members on the Coalition’s website, and prospective members whose request to join is approved by the specified deadline for the self-identified opportunity.

The main DPC Member contact will have final approval for who may submit an application on behalf of their organization, and applicants should take steps to ensure they are not inadvertently competing with colleagues.

Individuals associated with consortia or funded through agencies that are Full or Associate members of the DPC are eligible though they must confirm their application with the main DPC contact within the agency before applying. The DPC may pass the details of applications to the main DPC contact within these organizations as part of their assessment.

Before applying, please note that:

• Associate DPC Members can only receive one Member Self-Identified Opportunity grant per calendar year.

• Full DPC Members can receive up to two Member Self-Identified Opportunity grants per calendar year. The two grants cannot be for the same identified opportunity or for the same applicant. In other words, each application should be for a different individual to receive a grant for a different identified development opportunity.

Applicants must be employed or associated with the DPC member organization/consortia/agency during the time of the grant opportunity (e.g. a fixed-term contract covering the time period in which the course or event will take place, commitment from the organization to meet any additional costs incurred).

Honorary Personal Members and Allied Organizations are not eligible to apply for these grants.

Review Process and Assessment Criteria

The review process for grant applications is as follows:

• DPC Career Development Fund review panels are typically formed of the DPC’s Training and Grants Manager, Head of Workforce Development, and at least one member of the Workforce Development Sub-Committee with no conflicts of interest in relation to the applicants. Additional members may be added to the panel if required.

• The Training and Grants Manager collates applications and inputs basic information into a standard marksheet and circulates the applications and marksheet to the panel.

• Reviewers fill out their section of the marksheet and return the completed marksheet to the Training and Grants Manager so that individual marks can be combined on one sheet.

• Reviewers meet to discuss marks and select successful applicants.

• The Training and Grants Manager notifies all applicants of the result of their application.

The review process, on average, usually takes around two weeks to complete.

Applicants are expected to complete all sections of the form by the stated deadline and are encouraged to contact the Training and Grants Manager should any questions arise while completing the sections of the form.

Review and assessment of the applications considers how the development opportunity will further the applicant’s professional development as well as digital preservation work at their organization through the short answer sections of the application. Consideration is also given to other information such as previous grants received from the DPC and the applicant’s length of contract. Grants for those who would otherwise be unable to attend due to limited funding opportunities offered by their employers are prioritized. Preference will also be given to early years professionals (i.e., those who have been in a digital preservation role for less than 5 years) but applications are also welcomed from those further on in their career or those currently researching or studying digital preservation who have been approved by their DPC member institution (e.g., post-graduate students).

An overview of the review process and assessment criteria is available here.

Conditions of Grants

It is our aim that the grants will primarily deliver benefits to an identifiable DPC member organization, but that there should also be a benefit to the broader DPC community. Therefore, recipients will be asked to produce outputs that will help disseminate the information or skills they have learned for the wider benefit of the DPC Membership. This may include, but is not limited to, a blog post on the DPC website and/or Twitter coverage of an event, or a webinar. Outputs for individual recipients will be discussed with the Training and Grants Manager subsequent to the award and will be proportionate to the size of the grant awarded.

We recommend that any member organization which supports an application discusses appropriate outcomes and benefits for the institution prior to submission.

A list of blog posts and outputs from previous grant recipients is available here.

How to Apply

Applicants should complete and return the relevant application form (list provided below) to the Training and Grants Manager (Amy Currie, amy.currie[at]dpconline.org) before the specified deadline. Applications must also be accompanied by an email or letter containing explicit approval from your line manager, supervisor, or other senior executive to undertake the opportunity as well as a commitment from the organization to meet any additional costs incurred. 

Application forms for Advertised Calls

• Example application form for advertised calls (generic form) 

Application forms for Member Self-Identified Opportunities

• Application form for member self-identified training/development opportunities (due ~10 weeks before registration deadline)

The application form will be used by the review panel to assess eligibility against the criteria listed above and the impact attendance will have on the applicant’s professional development and the digital preservation work of their organization. The panel’s decision is final. Successful applicants will normally be notified within two weeks of the application deadline.

Please note that applicants must be employed or associated with the DPC member organization/consortia/agency during the time of the grant opportunity (e.g. a fixed-term contract covering the time period in which the course or event will take place, commitment from the organization to meet any additional costs incurred).

Deadlines for advertised grants will be included with the relevant call for applications. Applications for self-identified courses or development opportunities are received on a rolling basis but must be received at least 10 weeks before the registration deadline of the proposed activity.

Short notice applications will be considered depending on DPC staff capacity, and only if they are received 4 or more weeks before the registration deadline and the applicant can demonstrate that the lateness is for reasons out of their control.

All sections of the application form should be completed before submission, and applicants are encouraged to contact the Training and Grants Manager during the application process should any questions arise.

Further Information

• For more information about the Career Development Fund, see: https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/train-your-staff/cdfund

• For questions relating to this grant programme, email the DPC Training and Grants Manager (Amy Currie, amy.currie[at]dpconline.org)

• For information about joining the Digital Preservation Coalition, see: https://www.dpconline.org/about/join-us 

Acknowledgements

The Career Development Fund is sponsored by the DPC’s Supporters, who recognize the benefit and seek to support a connected and trained digital preservation workforce. We gratefully acknowledge their financial support of this programme and ask applicants to acknowledge that support in any communications that result. At the time of writing, the Career Development Fund is supported by Arkivum, Artefactual Systems Inc., boxxe, Cerabyte, Evolved Binary, Ex Libris, Iron Mountain, Libnova, Max Communications, Preservica, and Simon P Wilson. A full list of supporters is online here.

Face to face training is available on request for members. This page provides access to the training resources for the Getting Started and Making Progress courses.

Getting Started with Digital Preservation

'Getting Started with Digital Preservation' introduces delegates to common digitial preservation concepts and issues before walking them through the firsts steps they can take to manage their digital assets. This includes bit-level preservation, assessing their digital preservation maturity, undertaking a risk management exercise and creating a digital asset register.

• Introduction
• Bit Preservation
• Characterisation
• Assessing Readiness
• Risk Management
• Creating a Digital Asset Register
• Next Steps

Making Progress with Digital Preservation

'Making Progress with Digital Preservation' provides delegates with guidance on the 'next steps' in developing their digital preservation capability. Presentations and exercises will cover building a business case, drafting a digital preservation policy, developing a competent digital preservation workforce and making practical preservation decisions.

• Introduction (Getting Started Re-Cap)
• Building a Business Case
• Writing a Digital Preservation Policy
• Digital Preservation Skills
• Software for Digital Preservation ( previously Open Source Software)
• Preservation Planning

Getting Started with Advocacy for Digital Preservation

This workshop provides attendees with skills and ideas for identifying stakeholders and champions required to affect change, ways to showcase digital preservation as an indispensable service for their organisation, and resources to help support their organisational advocacy activities.

• Introduction to Advocacy for Digital Preservation
• Presenting Your Case
• Tools for Advocacy
• Building a Business Case