A key role for the DPC is to empower and develop our members’ workforces. Our members operate in a competitive and dynamic knowledge environment where roles and responsibilities of staff are constantly changing. It is crucial, therefore, that staff remain informed of, trained in and confident with the new developments and tools which are released and made available. This is particularly important when existing staff are retrained to embrace a new skills set.The DPC provides training and personal development facilities to address these challenges:

	Digital Preservation Competency Framework  The DPC Digital Preservation Competency Framework identifies and describes information on the skills, knowledge, and competencies required for successful digital preservation.
	Novice to Know-How online training   The Novice to Know-How learning pathway aims to provide beginners with the skills required to develop and implement simple digital preservation workflows within their organisation and is part of The National Archives’ digital capacity building strategy, ‘Plugged In, Powered Up,’
	Career Development Fund Provides support for DPC members to undertake training and personal development opportunities. These scholarships and grants are offered through regular calls for applications, but members are also welcome to nominate relevant opportunities .
	Getting Started and Making Progress training modules Reference materials for DPC face to face training. On-site training is available on request.
	DPC Reading Club 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.
	Python Study Group Program 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.
	Labour Market Analysis 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.
	Aus Preserves Ingest and Pre-Ingest training modules Materials for delivering face to face training focused on a range of skills relating to various aspects of receiving, handling, and managing digital content.
	External training/education opportunities A wide range of digital preservation training and development opportunities are offered by agencies and institutions around the world. A selection of courses offered by DPC members includes: Aberystwyth University Kings College London University College Dublin University College London University of Glasgow University of Salford University of Sheffield

This page brings together all of the DPC's resources for supporting digital preservation activities in our Member's organizations and beyond.

If you're new to digital preservation, check out our beginners guide: What is digital preservation?

	Discover good practice Discover authorative guidance and good practice in digital preservation	Get help with your digital preservation Dedicated support for DPC members DPC Consultancy Digital Preservation Handbook Technology Watch Publications Digital Preservation for Small Businesses: An Introductory Guide Working Groups and Task Forces Curation Costs Exchange Case Studies Discover resources in other languages Enviromentally Sustainable Digital Preservation Discover preservation topics
	Implement digital preservation Tackle digital preservation challenges with our tools for maturity modelling, policy development, advocacy and procurement	Business Case Toolkit Preservation Policy Toolkit Rapid Assessment Model Procurement Toolkit EDRMS Preservation Toolkit Computational Access: A beginner's guide Executive Guide on Digital Preservation Digital Preservation Documentation: a guide Digital Asset Register Toolkit Community Archives Digital Preservation Toolkit
	Champion digital preservation Raise the profile of digital preservation internationally and celebrate the successful work of our members in this field	Bit List Digital Preservation Awards World Digital Preservation Day Engaging with Public Policy
	Professional Development Train your staff in digital preservation and get support for professional development	Digital Preservation Competency Framework Novice to Know How training Career Development Fund DPC Reading Club Python Study Group Program Labour Market Analysis Aus Preserves Ingest and Pre-Ingest training modules Getting Started and Making Progress training modules
	Collaborative projects Discover the DPC's collaborative projects and completed work	Open Book Futures Novice to Know How Registries of Good Practice Completed Projects

This section of the Procurement Toolkit provides a structure for describing preservation system requirements in a standardized manner.

This structure aims to simplify communication of Members requirements while providing some indication of areas that should be considered for requirements gathing/coverage. Note that this observation is important. This work does not intend to imply that a particular organisation must document requirements in all of these sections. However, consideration should be given to whether coverage in each of these areas might be appropriate for the organisation in question. It has been developed based on requirements made available by DPC Members along with comparitive validation with related work and resources, including DPC RAM and ISO16363. Note also that this Toolkit includes a set of 10 core requirements for a preservation system which could be used to begin to populate this much broader structure.

1. Acquisition, transfer and ingest

2. Content preservation

3. Bitstream preservation

4. Management and administration

5. Discovery and access

6. Systems integration and interoperability

7. System design

8. Metadata management

9. Security

10. Disaster recovery and resilience

11. Export/exit strategy

12. Training

13. Usability/help/documentation

14. Contractual

15. Supplier profile

16. Implementation

17. General/other

A more detailed list, incorporating a second level of requirement topics can be found in this downloadable document: Common Requirements Structure v2.0 .

As noted in the "Lessons learned in digital preservation procurement" section (DPC Members only), a requirements led procurement process is not the only way to proceed, and may not be the best fit for you. However, many of our members do use this approach and this area has been identified by both DPC Members and Supporters as being ripe for additional development and support from the DPC.

Licence

Note that this work is made available under a CC-BY Licence.

• Piloting institutional digital preservation - experiences from the Jisc Open Research Hub pilots
• Procuring Digital Preservation: A Briefing - recorded presentations from the DPC's most recent briefing day on procurement (DPC Members only)
• 'Digital Preservation and Enterprise Architecture Collaboration at the University of Melbourne: A Meeting of Mindsets' - iPRES Conference paper
• ‘How to Talk to IT about Digital Preservation’ - Scott Prater's guide to engaging with your IT department
• DPC Handbook Procurement - checklists and issues for procurement in the DPC Handbook
• Digital Preservation Business Case Toolkit - for creating a business case prior to procurement activities

Foreword

The emergence of a genuine marketplace for third-party services has prompted a change in the approach that organizations take to deliver digital preservation. Only a decade ago it would have been inconceivable for core preservation activities to be fulfilled by a commercial entity on a short-term contract with closed source applications and off-site data storage. Much has changed in a decade, including the growth and maturation of commercial solutions, the emergence of a competitive marketplace and the paradigm shift towards cloud computing. As a result, many DPC Members have moved to outsource elements of their preservation activities – or at least moved towards dependence on commercially developed repository applications.

This dramatic change has brought considerable benefit. A professional digital preservation capability can now (at least in part) be bought off the shelf and implemented relatively rapidly. The growing number of third-party providers has generated a variety of effective products leading to new competition, which has stimulated growth and development.

The emergence of the commercial digital preservation marketplace also brings new challenges and risks. Mitigating these risks requires staff to gain new skills and understanding in managing outsourced work, including areas such as: renewed attention to quality checking; dedication to maintaining effective communication with third parties; and an awareness of (and preparedness for) the common problems that might occur.

Feedback from both DPC Members and Supporters suggests that procurement activities are complex, challenging and very time consuming. Members typically find slow moving procurement projects frustrating and feel unsure if these resource intensive processes will be successful in making the right procurement choices. Supporters are frustrated by the need to produce bespoke responses to long Requests for Information (RFIs), despite an obvious core set of questions that appear from one RFI to the next (albeit with different wording).

Once the procurement process itself is complete there are further challenges to navigate in the implementation phase. Both DPC Members and their suppliers will want a smooth and painless transition to a production system with effective integrations with existing systems and rigorous testing. Effective communication and clearly assigned roles and responsibilities will be required for successful implementation.

How to use this toolkit

This toolkit does not provide a guide to procurement itself, but rather aims to provide a variety of resources that will help make a procurement process more effective. A central part of the toolkit is the Lessons learned in digital preservation procurement section which describes an array of hints, tips and potential pitfalls derived from the first-hand experiences of DPC Members and Supporters. It includes generic procurement advice as well as specifics on the procurement of preservation systems, web archiving services and digitisation services. It is well worth digesting this guide before embarking upon a procurement process. There are pointers to activities that may be particularly beneficial to consider at an early stage. For example, testing is often only considered after a contract has been signed, but it might be beneficial to build a test plan at the beginning and integrate this into various procurement stages. The Common requirements structure section aims to remove redundant work from a requirements gathering process, and make the organisation and communication of requirements much more straightforward. It provides a structure into which an organization's requirements can be organized and communicated. This has been augmented with a new section in version 2 of this toolkit. The Core requirements for a digital preservation system provides a starting point for requirements gathering work, by describing the core requirements likely to be necessary in an digital preservation system. These last two sections may be of help in your procurement process, but remember that drawing up requirements should not be your starting point. The Digital preservation requirements for procuring IT systems provides a set of model requirements, and related guidance, on procuring IT systems that are unrelated to digital preservation but may hold data that will ultimately need to be preserved, such as an EDRMS, DAMS or GIS.

Future development

We’re particularly keen to continue adding lessons learned from DPC Members experiences, so please get in touch if you’ve recently completed a procurement process and would like to help out. Specific examples that we can include would be excellent, but so are broader hints and tips and any pitfalls to watch out for.

Discussions on procurement and the development of this Toolkit will continue to draw on Member feedback via our annual DP Futures and Connecting the Bits events, as well as discussion in the Good Practice Sub-Committee.

It should be clear to a reader of your policy who wrote it, when it was created and approved, when it was last updated and when it is due for review. It may also be useful to identify key checkpoints in drafting and record that key stakeholders have been involved. The inclusion of a version number may be helpful. Policy documents are typically reviewed and updated every two to five years, so it is helpful for readers to know they have the most up-to-date version. Key information about the document should be easy for the reader to find and clearly displayed.

Document control information is typically located at the start or end of a policy document and formatted as a table. There may be local preferences in your organization as to where the information is located and how it is formatted and what information should be recorded. Consider which of the following you might include:

• Approved by.

• Approval date.

• Version.

• Last amended date.

• Written/prepared by.

• Policy owner/sponsor.

• Policy contact.

• Distribution.

• Review Date.

• File name.

• Availability.

• Brief description of key changes made.

Consider the level of detail that is needed if you are recording version history and changes made. It may be useful to keep track of minor details and input from different stakeholders whilst the policy is moving towards approval and sign off, but a less detailed summary of document history may be more appropriate for the final version of your policy that you publish.

Example policy statements

Wellcome Collection Digital Preservation Policy 2019–2021 (2019) - this policy includes a clear table on the back page providing key information about the document.

Bodleian Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (2022) - this policy includes a document history section at the end which shows history of the document as it is revised and updated. 

Archaeology Data Service Preservation Policy - the ADS provides a table on their web page showing preservation policy versions and dates. This allows users to easily see which is the current version but also to look back at previous versions if required.

It is good practice to provide contact details for queries or feedback about the policy. If your policy is intended to be a method of communicating about digital preservation with a wider audience, you may want to facilitate two way communication, and putting a point of contact on your policy is the obvious way to do this.

Note, that providing contact details can be done in many different ways, under its own heading, in the document control section or alternatively as a clear statement at the start or end of the document.

Example policy statements

Cambridge University Libraries Digital Preservation Policy (2021) - this policy very clearly provides contact details on page 1 of the policy underneath the table of contents with 'Questions about this policy?' and an email address.

Library and Archives Canada Preservation Policy Framework (2022) - under the heading 'Information' this policy includes a postal and email address for questions about the Policy Framework.