Watch the Ceremony

In an exciting finale to the Digital Preservation Awards 2024, organisations and practitioners of digital preservation from around the world gathered together for a glittering presentation ceremony on Monday 16th September 2024, at the iPRES 2024 conference in Ghent, Belgium! Watch the ceremony now:

See photos from the awards ceremony

Meet the Winners

Collaborative models of care: preserving Australian First Nations digital cultural heritage 

2024 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Gustavo Castaner and April Miller Collaborative Models of Care was designed to provide a ‘best-practice blueprint’ for non- First Nations professionals wanting to contribute their digitisation and digital preservation skills, knowledge and expertise towards the care of digital cultural heritage held by and produced in Australian First Nations communities. Originally designed by Rebecca Barnott-Clement in the role of Digital Preservation Analyst and subsequently supported by Coby Edgar of Agency Projects, the project involved digitisation of archival assets for Bula’Bula Art Centre and the completion of a DPC RAM assessment (a tool to assess an organisation’s digital preservation maturity) for Bula’Bula Art Centre and Milingimbi Art Centre. Watch interview with Rebecca Barnott-Clement Watch the finalist video to find out more

Improving access to and sustainability of the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)

2024 Winner of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Lisa Griffith and Arif Shaon The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) holds records from 1,370 small languages, mainly audio recordings made since the 1950s. It has 16,000 hours of audio in 230 terabytes of material in 428,000 files stored in Amazon S3. This year’s initiative is to move all items to Research-Object Crate format. RO-Crate allows the whole collection to contain self-describing items so makes it more durable over time, and less reliant on a catalog that is at risk of failure, with consequent metadata loss. This also means they can then be delivered on wifi from a Raspberry Pi device, even in remote offline locations. Watch interview with Julia Miller Watch the finalist video to find out more

Study group Bits and Bots for building digital skills

2024 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Marjolein Steeman and Matthew Burgess Bits and Bots is a study group teaching digital archivists coding skills, currently focussing on Python and front-end development. The group is open to all and everyone, including the organisers, are learning together as a community instead of in isolation. Digital skills are increasingly important to digital preservation and it is not surprising that “Computer Programming” is listed as one of the skill elements in the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Framework. Coding can be daunting, Bits and Bots tackles this challenge, making learning fun by teaching coding through the creation of games. The community consists of 47 members from 5 continents. Watch interview with Susanne van den Eijkel, Francesca Mackenzie and Lotte Wijsman Watch the finalist video to find out more

Claudia Muñoz with Preservación de documentos digitales: el caso de Wikimedia México / Preservation of digital records: the case of Wikimedia Mexico 

2024 Winner of the CLOCKSS Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by Alicia Wise and Thomas Ledoux Mexican NGOs work on a wide variety of social problems related to technology, gender, violence, and support for social causes. However, their information and history, produced and disseminated in digital formats, are at risk because the organizations lack adequate digital preservation strategies to ensure the permanence and access of their information in the long term, which is aggravated by problems such as the digital divide or lack of budget. Therefore, Wikimedia Mexico, an NGO that promotes free access to knowledge, is taken as an example to establish digital preservation strategies according to its characteristics and context. Watch interview with Claudia Muñoz Watch the finalist video to find out more

NHS research records: Reducing Risk 

2024 Winner of the Research Data Alliance Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector  presented by Hilary Hanahoe and Mihaiela Donisa Barts Health NHS Trust has implemented a specialist digital archive that ensures records from clinical trials are preserved, accessible and usable for their whole retention period (mainly 25 years). This service is now being extended to other NHS Trusts who are finding it difficult to procure an archive themselves; thus helping to preserve data within wider healthcare research and raising awareness of digital preservation in this area. Barts is at the forefront of digital preservation for research study records as this is a complex and challenging environment that is just starting to generate discussion. Watch interview Sandra Blake and Jennifer Dando Watch the finalist video to find out more

DDLD – Living Archive 

2024 winner of the Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by Sonia Ranade and Jo Ana Morfin DDLD – living archive is the first and only repository preserving and cataloguing the work produced by killed journalists in Mexico. Over 163 reporters have been killed in Mexico since 2000. However, their work is largely unknown and faces the risk of disappearing, either because it was published in websites that lost their domain with the death of their founders or because their content was taken down from social media. Through the DDLD – living archive, over 19,000 published news pieces from 83 journalists killed in Mexico between 2000 and 2023 have been preserved. Watch interview with Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul Watch the finalist video to find out more

Gladys Kemboi

20244 Winner of the DPC Fellowship Award presented by Barbara Sierman and Nathan Tallman Watch the acceptence video from Gladys Kemboi

Find out more about all of the Digital Preservation Awards 2024 Finalists 

The DPC would like to thank our international panel of judges and all sponsors for their continued support in ensuring the Digital Preservation Awards can continue to recognise and celebrate achievements in the field of digital preservation. 

Watch the Ceremony

In an exciting finale to the Digital Preservation Awards 2022, organisations and practitioners of digital preservation from around the world gathered together for a glittering presentation ceremony on Monday 12th September 2022, at the iPres 2022 conference! Watch the ceremony now:

Meet the Winners

ARCHIVER Project  

2022 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Meg Phillips and Neil Grindley ARCHIVER is a unique initiative in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) that spent 3 years developing innovative services for Long Term Digital Preservation of scientific datasets. R&D was performed competitively by commercial suppliers, over 3 phases, selecting pilot services led by Arkivum and LIBNOVA, for scientific data archiving and preservation. The R&D was driven by a diverse range of stakeholders including CERN, operating the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, DESY (the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, in Germany), the EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute, in Cambridge), and PIC (Port d’Informació Científica, near Barcelona), contributing high-value datasets associated to the EOSC. Watch interview with Joao Fernandes, Matthew Addis and Teo Redondo Watch DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the Archiver Project

The effective preservation of archaeological virtual reconstructions 

2022 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Neil Chue Hong and Kirsty Lingstadt Many different professional communities are currently working on the preservation of complex digital objects, but there is not a unified structure drawing together all the numerous threads around preserving archaeological virtual reconstructions. This PhD programme showed that archaeological virtual reconstructions are a blend of artistic and scientific creativity. These ‘hybrid digital objects’ require delicate care to be preserved effectively in the long term. Thus, when considering a virtual reconstruction project, there are practical aspects that need to be tackled. In addressing these issues, this thesis presents a foundation (preservation framework) for how those various sectors fit together. Watch interview with Panagiotis Papageorgiou Watch DPA2022 Winners Webinar with Panagiotis Papageorgiou

Learning through doing: building digital preservation skills in Wales

2022 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Remco van Veenendaal and Roxana Maurer The Learning through Doing initiative is rooted in addressing issues arising from digital preservation in a practical way and addressing them collectively. The opportunities presented by the use of platforms such as Teams and Zoom enabled proactive engagement and facilitated connection across Wales. These platforms were used to deliver the Saving the Bits training programme which provided  a general introduction to digital preservation principles and practices for those in the cultural, education and public sectors in Wales. Another element of the initiative addressed the specific issue of remote deposit of digital content to the National Library of Wales, which is in the process of refinement.  Through working with students at Aberystwyth University in a practical workshop, issues identified which were addressed to improve Library processes. Through interactive engagement across Wales, skills and knowledge were built, underpinned  by the resources, community knowledge and training materials  which are freely available through the internet. Watch interview with Sarah Higgins and Sally Mcinnes Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on Learning through Doing

sasha arden with 'Access to Artistic Content on CD-ROMs' 

2022 Winner of the The National Archives (UK) Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by April Miller and Lotte Wijsman CD-ROMs completely changed the realm of artistic possibilities in the 1990s, but have you experienced one in the last ten years or so? The answer is likely no, and that is because CD-ROMs are now an obsolete format. This means that CD-ROMs are no longer made or in use. Further, changes in computer hardware, namely the phasing out of optical disc drives, as well as in operating systems like Mac OS 9, have made it impossible to view and experience the contents of existing artist CD-ROMs. Because of these difficulties, an important part of digital art’s history is in limbo. As part of their graduate internship with New York University in 2021-22, sasha worked on access to artist CD-ROMs with Collection Care Research at Tate. Keith Piper’s project Relocating the Remains (1999) served as a case study to explore the technical aspects of how to enable interaction with the CD-ROM contents. Sasha also paid attention to maintaining essential characteristics like color, and behaviors like click reaction times or rollover animations, which can be affected by current methods of access. Their research also considered where artist CD-ROMs sit within Tate’s collections and how that affects discoverability and access, as well as available preservation resources. Watch interview with Sarah Cook who accepted the award on behalf of sasha arden Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar with sasha arden

National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation Digital Preservation Program 

2022 Winner of the Research Data Alliance Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector presented by Connie Clare and Karen Sampson The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is devoted to the study of the history and legacy of the Canadian residential school program. In 2020 the NCTR won a $6 million Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant (CFI) to develop a digital preservation program for over four million digital documents and 7,000 recordings of Indigenous testimonies of the history and legacy of the residential school program. The project created a digital infrastructure and workplan for preservation of its digital holdings to make NCTR materials meaningfully available to Indigenous communities in  support of the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples. Watch interview with Emmanuel Modozie Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the NCTR Digital Preservation Program

Archiving Reproductive Health 

2022 winner of the Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by Kieran O'Leary and Patricia Sleeman The 'Digital Preservation of Reproductive Health Resources: Archiving the 8th' (Archiving Reproductive Health) project aims to provide long-term preservation and access to at-risk born-digital content generated by grassroots women’s reproductive health movements before and during the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution. Funded by Wellcome and administered by the Digital Repository of Ireland, the project is publishing and making available digital collections from activist organisations that otherwise would be lost. The preservation and publication of these collections add significantly to our understanding of women's rights movements and the history of reproductive healthcare in Ireland. Watch interview with Clare Lanigan and Lorraine Grimes Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar on the Archiving Reproductive Health Project

PREMIS Data Dictionary and related resources 

2022 winner of the DPC 20th Anniversary Award presented by Kevin Ashley and Edith Halvarsson PREMIS is the de-facto standard for preservation metadata and is today implemented in countless digital preservation systems – open as well as closed source, serving large archives as well as small repositories, supporting end-to-end processes as well as tools for specific tasks. But PREMIS is also much more than metadata: the Data Dictionary is a description of core information about digital objects. It can be used to implement PREMIS, but also to understand digital preservation processes and to benchmark your own solution. Lastly, PREMIS is also an active community as can be seen in countless implementation fairs, tutorials, workshops and discussions around the globe over the past 20 years. Watch interview with the PREMIS team Watch the DPA2022 Winners Webinar with the PREMIS team

Neil Beagrie, Adrian Brown, Dr. Denise de Vries, Nancy Y McGovern, Prof. Zhang Xiaolin

2022 Winners of the DPC Fellowship Award presented by Micky Lindlar and Barbara Sierman Watch interview with Neil Beagrie Watch interview with Adrian Brown Watch the acceptence video from Dr. Denise de Vries, Nancy Y McGovern and Prof. Zhang Xiaolin

Find out more about the Digital Preservation Awards 2022 Finalists 

The DPC would like to thank our international panel of judges and all sponsors for their continued support in ensuring the Digital Preservation Awards can continue to recognise and celebrate achievements in the field of digital preservation. 

The search for the very best work in digital preservation will begin again this year with the Digital Preservation Awards 2024! 

Organized by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) every two years, the prestigious Digital Preservation Awards is the most prominent celebration of achievement for those people and organisations who have made significant contributions towards a sustainable future for our digital assets. 

The exciting process will culminate in a presentation at the iPres 2024 Conference in Ghent on Monday 16th September 2024.

Visit this page again soon for more information about how to participate.

We are very grateful to our sponsors and DPC Supporters for their generous contributions which enable the Digital Preservation Awards to take place:

Category Sponsors

• The International Council on Archives, sponsors of the Award for Collaboration and Cooperation

• The Digital Repository of Ireland, sponsors of the Award for Research and Innovation

• The Dutch Digital Heritage Network (comprising Sound & Vision, National Archives of the Netherlands, KB The National Library of the Netherlands and the International Institute of Social History), sponsors of the Award for Teaching and Communications

• The National Archives (UK), sponsors of the Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy

• CLOCKSS, sponsors of the Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work 

• The Research Data Alliance, sponsors of the Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector

Our DPC Supporters are Bronze Sponsors of the Digital Preservation Awards

Sponsorship opportunities

If your organization would like to sponsor the Digital Preservation Awards please email sarah.middleton@dpconline.org. 

The Digital Preservation Coalition is pleased to announce its international panel of expert judges for 2024:

Matthew Burgess

State Library of New South Wales

Matthew Burgess is the Lead Digital Archivist at the State Library of NSW, where he manages the preservation and accessibility of the Library's born-digital collections. Passionate about sharing knowledge and good practice in digital preservation, he leads the Digital Preservation Network for National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), represents NSLA as the Vice-Chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Australasia and Asia Pacific Sub-Committee, and is a co-organiser for the Australasia Preserves digital preservation community of practice.

Gustavo Castener Marquardt

International Council on Archives 

Gustavo Castañer is a professional archivist and records manager. He currently works as Unit Head of Information Resources and Services at the Asian Development Bank (Manila). He has worked previously in archives and records management of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, European Commission, Council of the European Union and European External Action Service, as well as Spanish State Archives and the National Archives of Catalonia. He is especially interested in archives of international organizations, collection outreach, archival education and the use of archives to promote accountability and the defense of Human Rights. Within ICA, he has served previously as Chair of the Section of International Organizations and board member of the Section of Archives and Human Rights.

Fatima Darries

University of South Africa (UNISA)

Fatima leads and manages strategic Library initiatives in research data curation, digitisation of heritage and special collections, as well as metadata description of commercial and digital information resources at Unisa Library and Information Services. Her career has spanned both client and technical services in the Academic Library Sector and she continues to serve as South African country editor on E-LIS, the international archive for Library and related sciences, as well as on the Management and Government Subcommittee of the Digital Preservation Coalition.

Previously, Fatima served two terms of office on the Board of the National Library of South Africa, as well as serving the higher education sector with 10-year service as Board member on HERS SA, a network for women in higher education. She has served in various portfolios in the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA).

Mihaiela Donisa

Bank for International Settlements 

Mihaiela is a Records and Archives Expert at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) since 2019, leading projects on digitisation, access and digital preservation of the institutions' collections. The BIS is an international organisaiton established in 1930 and its mission is to support central banks' pursuit of monetary and financial stability through international cooperation, and to act as a bank for central banks.

Mihaiela holds a MA in Archives and Records Management from UCL and has previously worked in archives and records management roles for European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, BBC and the European Medicines Agency.

Lisa Griffith

Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI)

Lisa Griffith is Director at the DRI. During her seven years at the DRI she also worked as Membership Manager and Programme Manager. Lisa helped to created DRI’s Community Archive scheme, launched in 2018. She has a strong interest in Community Archives and ensuring digital infrastructures are accessible to all. Lisa is actively involved in Ireland’s National Open Research Forum (NORF), sitting on their Steering Group, Grants Oversight Committee and chairing the National PID Taskforce. She holds a PhD in History and came to the DRI from roles in higher education and cultural heritage.  

Gali Halevi

CLOCKSS

Gali Halevi is Collections Director for the CLOCKSS archive. She is a librarian and information specialist with over two decades of experience in the scientific publishing arena. She previously served as the Director of the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. During her tenure, she led research initiatives and scientific collaborations. Before joining Clarivate, Gali held positions at the Icahn School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System, where she advocated for open access principles and led faculty development activities as the associate dean for libraries and information sciences. At Reed-Elsevier, Gali managed academic customer engagement and research metrics, fostering relationships in academic and corporate sectors. Additionally, Gali has authored over 30 articles and book chapters in research metrics and evaluation.

Hilary Hanahoe

Research Data Alliance (RDA)

Hilary Hanahoe is the Secretary General of the global Research Data Alliance (RDA), an international, non-profit, volunteer organisation addressing the need for open and interoperable sharing and re-use of research data and building the social, technical and cross-disciplinary links to enable such sharing and re-use on a global scale. Currently, RDA has a community of over 12,500 individual data professionals from 145 countries collaborating on different open science and open data activities, operating under six fundamental guiding principles of openness, consensus, harmonisation, community-driven, inclusivity, not for profit and technology neutrality. Hilary is responsible for the financial and organisational sustainability of RDA on an international level and is the RDA Foundation CEO. She is passionate about the work of the Research Data Alliance and its vibrant, volunteer community working to enable the open sharing and reuse of data across the globe

Haliza Jailani

National Library Board Singapore

Previously responsible for the digital infrastructure programme at the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore, Haliza worked on digital preservation early in 2008 implementing Ex Libris’ Rosetta and operationalising digital preservation processes.  She is currently Deputy Director of  Resource Discovery & Management in NLB, overseeing a team of librarians responsible for cataloguing and knowledge organisation systems, including metadata for digital preservation and linked data for discovery.

William Kilbride

Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)

Executive Director for the DPC, William is the Acting Overall Chair of the Judging Panel. In his current role at the head of the DPC, he provides training and support to members as well as supporting the digital preservation community through advocacy work and enabling strategic partnerships. William is a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of digital preservation and has many years’ experience in the field, having previously held senior positions at Glasgow Museums and the Archaeology Data Service.

Nicola Laurent

Australian Society of Archivists 

Nicola Laurent is the Senior Project Archivist on the Find & Connect web resource at the University of Melbourne. Nicola is the President of the Australian Society of Archivists, the International Council on Archives' New Professionals Programme Coordinator and a member of the National Archives of Australia’s Advisory Council. She is also a PhD candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Melbourne undertaking research into the prevalence and impact of trauma in archives. 

Thomas Ledoux

Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Thomas is the coordinator of digital production at the Bibliothèque nationale de France / National Library of France (BnF), where he has work as a software engineer for over 25 years. He has always been interested in digital objects, ranging from access on public workstations to his involvement in the BnF's Scalable Preservation & Archiving Repository (SPAR). He regularly collaborates on various open source software, such as Jhove or Archifiltre.

Kirsty Lingstadt

University of York

Kirsty is Director of Library, Archives and Learning Services, University of York. She plays a key role in delivering digital services within the library, with a key focus on Discovery of Collections online. This includes digitization of collections, digital preservation and also providing tools and services for digital scholarship.

Roxana Maurer

Bibliothèque Nationale du Luxembourg

Roxana comes to her role of Digital Preservation Coordinator for the Bibliothèque Nationale du Luxembourg (BnL) with considerable expertise and experience in Information Technology. In this role, she manages the digital archive, preserving for the long-term the National Library’s digitized and born-digital collections, as well as being as being a strong advocate for digital preservation both within and beyond the institution. Roxana plays a pivotal role in the persist.lu service, which assigns and maintains persistent identifiers based on ARK for the library's collections and offers this service to other interested institutions based in Luxembourg. In this capacity, Roxana is also an active member of ARK Alliance’s Technical Working Group. Additionally, Roxana serves on the Executive Board of the DPC as a Director for Research and Chair for the Good Practice Sub-Committee.

April Miller

World Bank Group

A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Masters of Archives Studies program, April has worked in the field of archives and records management since 2000. This includes working as a Government Records Archivist at the National Archives of Canada, and now as the Manager for the programs, services and staff of the World Bank Group Archives & Records unit (ITSAR). Established in 1945, the World Bank Group is an international organization whose aim is to reduce poverty and promote shared prosperity around the world, and whose archival holdings illuminate the Bank’s engagement with its member countries to promote economic development. April has had the benefit of working through all records management and archives functions at the Bank, and delights in leading a group of dedicated professionals into our digital preservation endeavour.  

Jenny Mitcham

DPC

Jenny began her career getting muddy and wet on archaeological digs so rapidly moved to working in an office with computers. This is how she got into digital preservation. After working for 15 years as a digital archivist at the University of York, she is now Head of Good Practice and Standards at the Digital Preservation Coalition where she has been supporting members with various strategic and practical challenges, and developed the DPC's Rapid Assessment Model (RAM). She also works closely with the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Jo Ana Morfin

Memórica - Archivo General de la Nación

Jo Ana is a conservator of time-based media and works in the field of digital heritage.  Her research focuses on the challenges in preserving contemporary cultural and social legacies rooted in ephemera and obsolete technologies. She works with cultural organizations and small communities of practice to implement best practices for digital preservation.

Sonia Ranade

The National Archives UK

Dr Sonia Ranade is Head of Digital Archiving at The National Archives (UK), with responsibility for digital services to records creators in government (for selection and transfer), preservation of the digital Public Record and access to born digital records. Her research interests include probabilistic approaches to archival description, digital preservation risk and developing new access routes for digital archives. Sonia holds a PhD in Information Science.

Arif Shaon

Qatar National Library

Arif Shaon is the Head of Digital Curation, Preservation, and Access at Qatar National Library, where he leads all activities related to long-term digital curation and preservation of the library’s digital collections. He has also held key positions at UNSW Library, University of New South Wales, Australia, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK, where he played leading roles in software development and research projects in digital preservation and curation, and research data management.

Barbara Sierman

Barbara Sierman worked from 2005 to 2020 as the digital preservation manager at the Research Department of the KB National Library of the Netherlands. She was active on the Board of the Open Preservation Foundation and the Steering Committee of the IIPC. In 2018, she was awarded the Digital Preservation Coalition Fellowship for her contribution to the field of digital preservation. After her retirement, she founded DigitalPreservation.nl and worked as a consultant on digital preservation topics for various clients such as OPF, NANETH, CTS, and NDE. Currently, she is preparing a publication about the origins of the digital preservation profession.

Marjolein Steeman

Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed / Beeld en Geluid

Marjolein works on projects in the area of preservation and metadata, developing and implementing preservation plans for new formats and archive services. She has worked worked at Beeld en Geluid / Sound & Vision for over 10 years. She studied information science at VU University Amsterdam and worked for years as an expert in data analysis and data management. Among other things, she has worked to secure various catalogs that came to Sound & Vision via merger partners or depositors. From 2017, Marjolein is part of the Verkennen Department, where she is responsible for the preservation policy of Sound & Vision. She is also a member of the Editorial Committee of PREMIS, the data standard for preservation metadata. In addition to the certification as a sustainable archive (CTS), the ISO certificate for information security (27001) also falls under her care.

Nathan Tallman

Academic Preservation Trust

Nathan Tallman is Executive Director of Academic Preservation Trust where he articulates a vision and executes strategic management for a community-owned distributed digital preservation service. He provides operational oversight of APTrust operations, including the development of plans and processes for the lifecycle of deposited content and the integration of digital preservation processes at existing and prospective APTrust member institutions. Previously, Nathan served as Digital Preservation Librarian and Penn State University and Digital Content Strategist at the University of Cincinnati.

Melissa Terras

University of Edinburgh

Melissa Terras is Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage within Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her research contributions are in the area of digitisation of cultural heritage, covering three main areas: advanced digitisation techniques and approaches; understanding large-scale digitisation in the cultural heritage sector and how it can be best deployed for and by users as well as by institutions; and utilising the results of digitisation to undertake novel research and innovative projects in the arts and humanities. Recently, she has been working on the use of advanced technology in the cultural and creative industries, particularly how we can support innovation in this area. Melissa is Director of Creative Informatics, the Edinburgh based AHRC Creative Cluster (2018-2024), and a founding Director of Transkribus, the AI-powered platform for text recognition of historical documents. She is the University of Edinburgh Lead for CoSTAR (UK Government’s Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime) programme (2023-29). 

Heather Tompkins

Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada 

Heather Tompkins is Senior Project Officer in the Digital Collections and Operations Division at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) where she has been working on the digital preservation of archival records for 16 years. Her work includes strategic advice and guidance on the transfer and processing of digital records, policy development and the establishment of LAC’s Pre-Ingest procedures. She recently completed a three-year stint on the DPC’s Good Practice subcommittee and is looking forward contributing to the wider digital preservation community as a Judge for the 2024 awards.

Jessica Venlet

National Digital Stewardship Alliance / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jessica Venlet works as the Assistant University Archivist for Digital Records and Records Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. In this role, she is responsible for a variety of things related to both records management and digital preservation. In particular, she leads the processing and management of born-digital archival materials.

Jaye Weatherburn

University of Melbourne 

Jaye Weatherburn is the Program Manager, Digital Preservation at the University of Melbourne, coordinating ongoing development for digital preservation and stewardship activities. Since 2018 she has developed and coordinated the regional digital preservation community of practice Australasia Preserves and previously led the pilot development for the international Digital Preservation Coalition’s Australasian activities throughout 2020-2021, aiming to further enhance digital preservation awareness and practice for the Australasian community.

Entrants for the Digital Preservation Awards submitted nominations by 0800 (UTC) on Monday 22 April 2024 (see ‘How to Enter' for details). Nominations are evaluated, and finalists decided by the Digital Preservation Judging Panel Meeting in May 2024.

Once announced, finalists will then be required to do the following:

• Submit a 3-minute lightning video outlining the key elements of the initiative. More details will be provided at this stage.

• With the exception of the Student Award, attend an online interview with the Judging Panel week commencing 15th July 2024, explaining the importance of the initiative the field of digital preservation.

• Provide good quality visual material – at least three hi-res jpeg images (e.g., project team, location shots, screen shots, products) – of the project to be used in publicity material relating to the Award and/or the Awards ceremony.

Only finalists will be asked for full details of their projects.

The following gives an outline of key dates. Dates will be finalized and agreed at the earliest opportunity.

  We are very grateful to our sponsors and DPC Supporters for their generous contributions which enable the Digital Preservation Awards to take place:

If your organization would like to sponsor the Digital Preservation Awards please email sarah.middleton@dpconline.org. 

Scope

• The Judges will assume a broad definition of digital preservation: projects which describe themselves with specialist terms like ‘conservation’, ‘continuity’, ‘curation’, ‘legacy’, ‘permanent accessibility’, ‘sustainment’ or ‘sustainability’ will be eligible so long as they can demonstrate that they are working towards a sustainable future for our digital assets. Typically, digitization projects will not be eligible unless they offer a specific deliverable that will improve long term access to the digital estate. The Judges’ decision will be final, and no discussion will be entered into.

Deadline

• There will be no extensions to the deadline.

Who can apply? 

• The awards are open to all. They seek to include entries from all organization types, across all sectors – public, private, for-profit, and non-profit and nominees do not need to be members of the DPC. The awards are international in scope and the project may have been carried out anywhere in the world; Judges will be looking to see how results and lessons learned are being shared with the wider digital preservation community so that they may also learn from the efforts undertaken. Nominations must be supported by senior management within your institution and nominations based on an external grant or commission should be supported by the grant giving agency or commissioning agent. Joint nominations are welcome from individuals or teams working in the public or private sectors, though a single point of contact must be agreed. There is no fee to enter the Digital Preservation Awards.

Do I need support from my manager? 

• Yes. The purpose of the Digital Preservation Awards is about raising awareness about digital preservation. By seeking the approval of management, we are asking you to undertake a modest amount of internal advocacy. For the purposes of the student award, the course convener or head of department is effectively the senior manager. Please address your letter of Support to the Judging Panel.

Why is there a timeframe? 

• The Awards are given for initiatives that were completed between 1st August 2022 and 31st July 2024 which is the period since the last Digital Preservation Awards, though Judges will be asked to use their discretion in the admittance of nominations which have been completed outside that period. NB: although the completion date should fall between the dates given, work may have begun at any date.

What can we submit? 

• Any project or initiative which has contributed towards a sustainable future for our digital assets. By ‘project’ we mean any sustained and unified effort that works towards a discrete and definitive outcome. This might include the development and delivery of innovative services or a single program of work. Pilot projects and full-scale projects can be submitted though nominees may wish to signal the relationship between them. Combinations of projects which happen to operate in the same sphere, but which have no structural linkage should be avoided and large or complex projects are encouraged to concentrate on specific deliverables which can be more readily understood. Small projects with modest outcomes are particularly encouraged to apply because impact will be assessed in proportion to the total resource expended. 

Will you supply travel grants?  

• Where necessary we will provide a contribution towards travel for two participants to attend the ceremony. Nominees wishing to attend the iPres Conference must register for this separately, fees for attending the conference will not be covered.

Will you give feedback about our nomination? 

• Yes. All nominees get feedback from the Judges and shortlisted candidates will also receive feedback from their peers gathered from the public vote. The feedback will always be constructive, and the Judges encourage nominees to append these comments to their professional and organizational CVs.

Can we promote the fact that we have submitted a nomination, been shortlisted or have won an award? 

• Yes, we actively encourage you to do so. Where possible we will help you by providing supportive quotes or photography and will make time for press calls. The awards are run to engage the widest possible community in digital preservation, so we call on everyone interested in the awards to help raise their profile.

Can I ask your advice about completing my nomination form? 

• Yes, but we reserve the right to publish that advice on the FAQ section of the Digital Preservation Awards Website to ensure that any points of clarification are available to all. We will keep such advice anonymous. There is a comment function on the FAQ section of the website that you can use to ask questions.

Can I nominate someone for the DPC Fellowship Award? 

• DPC members will be formally invited to submit their nominations for the Fellowship Award with the online vote in June 2024. In response to this invitation, members should include their nominations as part of the voting card, or email their nominations to sarah.middleton@dpconline.org and we will collate a list for the Judges’ consideration in July. At this stage, the Judges will also submit their own nominations if not already made and a winner will be decided by the Judges only, from this list. The winner of the Fellowship Award will be decided upon by the Judging Panel from this list of names.

Did this page answer your question?

If not, email sarah.middleton@dpconline.org or add your question to the comments below...

Watch the ceremony

Watch the Digital Preservation Awards ceremony, filmed live on 30th November 2016 at the Wellcome Collection, London.

Meet the Winners

NCDD and NDE, ‘Constructing a network of nationwide facilities together.’

2016 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation, presented by Neil Chue Hong, SSI and Dave Tarrant, ODI To achieve cross-domain collaboration and to create a network of nationwide facilities, a practical framework has been developed in The Netherlands for public organisations that ensure sustained access to digital information. Based on realistic and achievable scenarios, these organisations and their clients can now make well-founded policy choices, rearrange resources, and better designate responsibilities on a national scale. Carefully avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach, the strategy is based on differentiation between do-mains while achieving economies of scale and other efficiencies by sharing jointly facilities and ser-vices where possible. Watch interview with Joost van der Nat and Barbara Sierman

The National Archives and The Scottish Council on Archives: ‘Transforming Archives/Opening Up Scotland’s Archives.’

2016 Winner of the NCDD Award for Teaching and Communications, presented by Marcel Ras, NCDD and Margriet van Gorsel, Dutch National Archives These HLF-supported programmes jointly offer 55 practical year-long traineeships (of which 37 fall into the qualifying period), hosted at 26 archives across England and Scotland 2014-17. Our aim is to transform the archives workforce, bringing people with specialist skills (including strong IT qualifications and experience) into the heritage sector and offering alternative pathways to careers in archives. Trainees focus on a variety of skills but many take a bespoke ‘Introduction to Digitisation and Digital Preservation’ module at University of Dundee, to ensure our new workforce starts out with awareness of the critical importance of the emerging digital challenges in archives.   Watch interview with Audrey Wilson, Emma Stagg and Victoria Brown

Anthea Seles, University College London and ‘The Transferability of Trusted Digital Repository Standards to an East African context. 

2016 Winner of the DPC Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation, presented by Daniela Duca, Jisc and Steve Daly, BBC Digital preservation is a topic that has been extensively explored over the last thirty years in the fields of archival and information studies. However, relatively little literature has touched on the topic of Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs). A TDR is '[A]n archive, consisting of an organization of people and systems that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available for a Designated Community.’1 Standards governing TDRs, namely the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and Repository Audit and Certification (RAC), have been designed and tested by developed nations with minimal reference to the developing world. Little attempt has been made to question whether these standards, entirely developed in one context, are actually transferable or applicable to another. There is an assumption, however, that because these standards have been generalised, they are ubiquitous and robust, transferable to any locale. This thesis seeks to question the basic assumptions that are made when standards or best practice created in the developed world are applied to different contexts outside of the original milieu of elaboration. Further, this thesis considers the applicability of TDRs to the Eastern African archival context. Using threefold mimesis, the study examines the standards development process, identifying underlying socio-economic, cultural, infrastructural, educational and other presumptions that may exist in the documented standards. It also examines whether these biases impact on the applicability and transferability of standards to Eastern Africa. Watch interview with Anthea Seles

HSBC, ‘Global Digital Archive System (GDA)' 

2016 Winner of the DPC Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Industry, presented by Tim Gollins, National Records of Scotland and Sharon McMeekin, DPC HSBC’s Global Digital Archive system launched in January 2015. It combines a synchronised Preservica digital repository, with discrete Calm archival management catalogues covering Asia, Europe and North America. This holistic approach to collections management and digital preservation merges ingest and preservation workflows with strong search capabilities, enabling the archivists to curate physical assets, digital copies and born‐digital records on a global basis. The project was successful in demonstrating to ‘big business’ that preservation technology is a truly specialist requirement – separate to traditional document management. It also navigated numerous information security risks posed in a commercially sensitive and highly regulated environment. Watch interview with James Mortlock

Amsterdam Museum and Partners, ‘The Digital City revives: A case study of web archaeology.’ 

2016 Winner of the National Archives Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy, presented by John Sheridan, The National Archives and Louise Lawson, Tate On 15 January 1994 De Digitale Stad (DDS; The Digital City) opened its virtual gates. DDS, the first virtual city worldwide, made the internet (free) accessible for the first time to the general public in the Netherlands. In 2001 The Digital City, the website, was taken offline. Our digital heritage, and especially the digital memory of the early web, is at risk of being lost. Or worse already gone. In the case study of web archaeology we will answer the questions: how to excavate, reconstruct, preserve and sustainably store born-digital heritage (DDS) and make it accessible to future generations? Watch interview with Tjarda de Haan and Erwin Verbruggen

Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive 

Digital Preservation Awards 2016 Finalists 

The DPC extends grateful thanks to our international panel of Judges and all of our sponsors who made DPA2016 a possibility:

Watch the ceremony

Watch the Digital Preservation Awards ceremony, filmed live in November 2018 at the Amsterdam Museum in the Netherlands.

Meet the Winners

Stanford University Libraries, ePADD 

2018 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Neil Chue Hong, SSI and Natalie Harrower, Digital Repository of Ireland ePADD is free and open source software developed by Stanford University Libraries and partners that supports the appraisal, processing, preservation, discovery, and delivery of email archives of potential historical or cultural value. Over the past five years, ePADD has pioneered the application of machine learning and natural language processing to confront challenges that collection donors, archivists, and researchers routinely face in donating, administering, preserving, or accessing email collections. This includes screening email for confidential, restricted, or legally-protected information, preparing email for preservation, and making the resulting files (which incorporates preservation actions taken by the repository) discoverable and accessible to researchers. Watch interview with Josh Schneider Watch DPA2018 Winners Webinar on ePADD

Jennifer Allen, Matthew Farrell, Shira Peltzman, Alice Prael and Dorothy Waugh; The Archivist’s Guide to Kryoflux 

2018 Winner of the DPC Award for Teaching and Communications, presented by Sally McInnes, National Library of Wales and Neil Grindley, Jisc For archivists preserving and providing access to data stored on floppy disks, the KryoFlux offers significant benefits. This floppy disk controller supports a variety of legacy encoding formats, effectively handles degraded data, and creates bit-for-bit disk images suitable for long-term preservation. Unfortunately, existing documentation for the KryoFlux is scant and assumes a level of technical knowledge largely absent from archival literature and curricula. The Archivist’s Guide to KryoFlux is a manual designed to fill that gap. Written specifically for archivists, it provides clear instructions for practitioners using the KryoFlux to support the preservation of important cultural heritage data. Watch interview with Dorothy Waugh Watch DPA2018 Winners Webinar on Archivists Guide to the Kryoflux

Anna Oates; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

2018 Winner of the National Records of Scotland (NRS) Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation, presented by Laura Mitchell, NRS and Laura Molloy, University of Oxford The PDF/A standard is a component of many institutional repository file format policies. However, full conformance with the standard is often difficult to achieve for born-digital documents. This paper presents findings from trial migrations/normalization to PDF/A of student papers held in the Oxford University Research Archive. The study tested multiple PDF/A creation software and format validation tools in use by institutions. It further presents findings from interviews with institutional repository staff currently using the standard within their workflows. With these datasets as its basis, the paper identifies common occurrences of non-conformances with the PDF/A standard and discusses to what extent these non-conformances present preservation risks. Watch interview with Anna Oates Watch DPA2018 Winners Webinar with Anna Oates

Crossrail and Transport for London; Archiving Crossrail 

2018 Winner of the Open Data Institute (ODI) Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector, presented by David Beardmore, ODI and Sheila Morrissey, Portico The Crossrail Act giving permission for what is now called the Elizabeth Line to be built operated and maintained received Royal Assent in July 2008. Over the next 10 years Europe’s biggest infrastructure project at £14.8 billion has integrated the information developed from over 25 main design contracts, 30 advanced work contracts and 60+ logistics and main works contracts. Crossrail embraced BIM (Building Information Modelling) with a single set of linked applications shared with contractors across all phases of the project. The challenge for the archive team was to preserve a heavily interlinked dataset without having to retain legacy software. Watch interview with Alastair Goodall Watch DPA2018 Winners Webinar on Archiving Crossrail

IFI Irish Film Archive; IFI Loopline Project 

2018 Winner of the National Archives Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy, presented by Valerie Johnson, The National Archives and Neil Jefferies Frustrated by budget constraints & unresponsive commercial vendors the IFI Irish Film Archive was inspired by the FLOSS community to develop a suite of 55 open source scripts (IFIScripts) that support our digital preservation activities in a sustainable and efficient manner. Solving problems in-house has reduced our maintenance costs and vendor fees and allowed us to take control of our preservation workflows. Not only has IFIScripts helped us to fulfil our digital preservation remit within our limited staff and financial resources, but we sharing all our tools with the preservation community on Githib for others to use and adapt. We are currently completing our first end- to- end application of the IFI Scripts on a preservation projection for a collection of material from a leading Irish film production company called Loopline Films. Watch interview with Kasandra O'Connell and Kieran O'Leary Watch DPA2018 Winners Webinar on the IFI Irish Film Archive Loopline Project

Barbara Sierman

2018 Winner of the DPC Fellowship Award, presented by Richard Ovenden, Bodleian Libraries        Watch interview with Barbara Sierman

The Digital Preservation Awards 2018 Finalists 

The Software Sustainability Institute Award for Research and Innovation ePADD, University of Stanford VeraPDF, Open Preservation Foundation Contributions towards Defining the Discipline, Sarah Higgins - Aberystwyth University Flashback: Preservation of legacy digital collections, British Library	The DPC Award for Teaching and Communications Evidence-­based postgraduate education in digital information management, University College Dublin Leren Preserveren (Learning Digital Preservation), Digital Heritage Network and Het Nieuwe Instituut Ibadan/Liverpool Digital Curation Curriculum Review Project, Universities of Ibadan and Liverpool The Archivist’s Guide to KryoFlux, Universities of Texas, Duke, Los Angeles, Yale and Emory
The National Records of Scotland Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation 'Navigating the PDF/A Standard: A Case Study of Theses' by Anna Oates, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 'Preserving the past: the challenge of digital archiving within a Scottish Local Authority' by Lorraine Murray, University of Glasgow 'Essay on the record-making and record-keeping issues implicit in Wearables' by Philippa Turner, University of Liverpool	The Open Data Institute Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third sector Music Treasures, Stichting Omroep Muziek (SOM) Archiving Crossrail - Europe’s largest infrastructure project, Crossrail and Transport for London Heritage preservation of contemporary dance and choreography through research and innovation in digital documentation and annotation of creative processes, ICKamsterdam and Motion Bank
The National Archives Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy IFI Open Source tools: IFIscripts/ Loopline project, IFI Irish Film Archive Cloud-Enabled Preservation of Life in the 20th Century White House, White House Historical Association Digital Library Design, Deliver, Embed: Establishing Digital Transfer in Parliament, UK Parliamentary Archives Local Authority Digital Preservation Consortium: Dorset History Centre, West Sussex Records Office, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre In the category of 'Safeguarding the Digital Legacy' The judges also offered a special commendation to the GI Press Collection

The DPC extends grateful thanks to our international panel of Judges and all of our sponsors who made the Digital Preservation Awards 2018 a possibility:

Watch the ceremony

Watch the Digital Preservation Awards ceremony, which took place online for World Digital Preservation Day on 5th November 2020.

Meet the Winners 

NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation Revision Project   

2020 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Anthea Seles and Neil Grindley The updated Levels of Digital Preservation represent a codification of current technological practices for long-term preservation of digital resources in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums.  These guidelines are presented in an easy to understand matrix designed to be useful for newcomers and experts alike.  The redesign looks at five functional areas of digital preservation and recommends a tiered set of practices that map to four increasingly robust levels of digital preservation.  Available in multiple languages, this update also includes an assessment tool and technological implementation guidance for using the levels. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation

Levels of Born Digital Access  

2020 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Neil Chue Hong and Sally McInnes The Levels of Born-Digital Access provides a tiered set of format-agnostic practices to facilitate and improve access to born-digital materials across five distinct areas -- Accessibility, Description, Researcher Support and Discovery, Security, and Tools. In addition to defining a set of recommended baseline access requirements, the Levels also lays out concrete and actionable recommendations that institutions can implement according to their needs, resources, and abilities. Developed using an iterative and collaborative approach, the Levels document is responsive to practitioners’ and researchers’ needs, while also serving as a potentially inclusive model for future standards development. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with Levels of Born Digital Access

Digital Records Curation Programme  

2020 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Marcel Ras and Sheila Morrissey The Digital Records Curation Programme (DRCP) is a volunteer-led initiative of the International Council on Archives’ Africa Programme aiming to build capacity among African archival educators. It took existing free resources, packaging them into easy to use teaching materials for low-resource environments. The DRCP recognises that digital records are proliferating in organisations, industries and countries not always well-equipped to manage and preserve them, compared to technical know-how developed and used in more highly-resourced contexts. DRCP materials constitute a modular course that can be adapted by lecturers to suit the local working context, delivered ‘as is’ or integrated into existing curricula. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with DRCP

Lotte Wijsman with ‘The Significant Properties of Spreadsheets: Stakeholder Analysis’  

2020 Winner of the National Records of Scotland (NRS) Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by Susan Corrigall and Angela Beking Spreadsheets are reliant on software that could become obsolete. When this materialises, the file must be converted to an alternative format and, as a  consequence, a loss of information could occur. It is therefore important to define what is significant and should be preserved. This study develops a framework on how to assess which properties stakeholders deem to be significant. Statistical analyses combined with a Spreadsheet Complexity Analyser show that objective criteria of a spreadsheet are strong predictors of significant properties. This study also provides guidance to archives for best practices concerning stakeholder analysis in the context of significant properties. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with Lotte Wijsman

UNHCR Records and Archives  

2020 Winner of the DPC Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector presented by Karen Sampson and Neil Jefferies UNHCR is at the forefront of one of the most critical crises facing the world in the 21st century – that of displacement. 75.9 million people - 1 percent of the world’s population - have fled their homes due to conflict or persecution. Preserving ‘the history of now’, for present and future generations has never been more complex or essential. UNHCR Records and Archives Section (RAS) preserves not just the legacy of UNHCR work but also of humanity. Though small in size, it supports a global staff of over 17,000 and has an ambitious vision. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with UNHCR Archive

UK Web Archive: celebrating 15 years  

2020 Winner of The National Archives (UK) Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by John Sheridan and April Miller The UK Web Archive celebrated its 15 year anniversary in 2020. From its beginnings, UKWA has drawn attention to the value of communication on the web, the high risk of loss for this content, and the need for a national programme to preserve digital communications. UKWA has made a sustained and powerful public case for the preservation of born digital communication and publication in the UK, and has worked collaboratively with libraries and other institutions around the world to support web archiving. Watch the DPA2020 Winners Webinar with UKWA

Micky Lindlar 

2020 The DPC Fellowship Award, presented by Richard Ovenden Read Micky's acceptance speech on the DPC blog

Find out about the Digital Preservation Awards 2020 Finalists 

Drawing together the finalists' presentatations from the #WeMissiPRES event in September 2020, hear our Digital Preservation Awards judges as they introduce and reflect on the excellent, inspiring and innovative people and projects they have encountered throughout the awards process.

Watch and learn about each of our incredible finalists as they tell us more about their work.

The Digital Preservation Awards are made possible by the expertise and support provided by our international panel of Judges, and funding from our sponsors.