In early 2020 the DPC established the EDRMS Preservation Task Force. The task force was set up in response to a request to investigate this topic emerging from a digital preservation project with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
The DPC invited Members to express an interest in joining the task force for a set period of 6 months with the aim of bringing together multiple stakeholders on the issue of EDRMS preservation to identify and elicit good practice. It was intended that not just the NDA but the whole of the DPC Membership would be able to benefit from this knowledge exchange.
The task force intended to:
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Articulate the challenge/s of preserving records from an EDRMS
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Share experiences of tackling these issues and learning from each other
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Highlight other useful case studies or examples of good practice
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Gather together existing sources of guidance
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Highlight gaps in current guidance
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Make recommendations for concrete DPC outputs or events to help address the challenge (for example: briefing day, technology watch report, guidance notes, case studies, webinars, blog posts)
As this initial 6 month period came to an end, task force members agreed to continue to meet in order to carry out some agreed actions - the creation of some online guidance on EDRMS preservation (this toolkit!) and a briefing day on the topic. At this point a call for new task force members went out to DPC Members to gather further volunteers to engage with this programme of work.
The text for this resource was created by a series of subgroups of the task force and through an online booksprint event which was held in January 2021.
Some of the booksprint team
Our briefing day event ‘Unbroken records: A briefing day on Digital Preservation and EDRMS‘ was held on 20th May 2021 and involved a great line up of presentations, from both members of the task force and other invited speakers. Many of these talks are linked from relevant points from within this online resource.
A big thank you to members of the EDRMS Preservation Task Force for sharing their challenges, knowledge and experience on this topic and their hard work and good humour throughout.
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Kyle Browness - Library and Archives Canada
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Hugh Campbell - PRONI
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Kevin De Vorsey - NARA
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James Doig - National Archives of Australia
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Tim Gollins - National Records of Scotland
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James Lappin - University of Loughborough
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Rachel MacGregor - Warwick University
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Jenny Mitcham - Digital Preservation Coalition
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Bob Radford - Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
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Kristen Schuster - King's College London
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Caylin Smith - University of Cambridge
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Sara Somerville - University of Glasgow
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Nicola Steele - Grosvenor Estate
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Zsuzsanna Tozser Milam - European Central Bank
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Elvis Valdes Ramirez - United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals
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Lorna Williams - Bank of England
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Emma Yan - University of Glasgow
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Paul Young - The National Archives UK
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The EDRMS Preservation Task Force was established by the DPC as a result of a digital preservation project with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and our thanks go to them for supporting this work. |