DPC

The UK Government Department for Media, Culture and Sport has commissioned The National Archives (UK) to refresh the government’s strategic vision for the archives sector, Archives Unlocked. 

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) would like to invite you to the DMPonline Community Event on 21 May 2024. The event is an opportunity to present and celebrate members of the community and provide a platform for attendees to learn from experts who share insights on areas of their work.  

The National Archives (UK) and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) are pleased to announce the launch of a new toolkit, and related online course, to help organizations develop Digital Asset Registers. A Digital Asset Register (DAR) is a high-level resource that captures information about digital content held by an organization. As such, developing a DAR is an important step towards gaining intellectual control of that content and planning for its preservation.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is pleased to offer a Career Development Fund grant to support a DPC Member attending the Archives and Records Association Annual Conference (ARA 2024), taking place 28-30 August in Birmingham, UK.

This grant will cover 100% of the full conference registration fees (includes accommodation) and provide a contribution towards travel. Grant applications are welcomed from DPC members until 07:00 UTC on 4th June 2024.

The ATRIUM project invites researchers to apply to participate in Transnational Access training visits to support their research. ATRIUM’s Transnational Access (TNA) scheme offers Arts and Humanities researchers the possibility to apply for a fully funded placement at several different partner organisations to access expert knowledge and advice from leading Data Management organisations across Europe. The available placements include learning about digital preservation, the transcription of historical manuscripts, language technologies and more! A full list is available on the ATRIUM website.

The following is a set of example questions that might be used for an interview to gather information about the digital content that should be recorded in your organization’s DAR. They can be used as a starting point for developing your own question set: adding, removing, or tailoring the questions as needed to reflect the information you need to gather, how your interviews will be carried out, and organizational culture and working practices. This list is meant to be relatively comprehensive, so it is unlikely you would aim to cover all of these in a single interview session. Additionally, you may wish to consider the terminology used (are there particular terms used in your organization? Will you need to explain terms?)

1. How does your role relate to the creation, acquisition, and/or management of digital content?
2. Is there any particular digital content of digital content that you create, acquire, and/or manage?
   1. What is their purpose/significance?
   2. Is it important that they be preserved?
3. Who owns the digital content? (e.g. the organization, a partner organization, a donor, etc.)
   1. Are there any agreements in place in relation to ownership, use, and/or intellectual property rights?
4. Who has ultimate responsibility for managing the digital content?
5. What types of content are included? (e.g. file formats)
6. How much digital content is there? (e.g. in MB or GB)
   1. Is the digital content expected to grow? Can you estimate by how much and when?
   2. Are there multiple versions of particular content?
7. What tools, equipment, and/or software are used in the creation, acquisition, and/or management of the digital content?
8. Do you maintain, or know of, any documentation in relation to the digital content? (e.g. metadata, technical documentation, catalogue records, a data management plan.)
9. Where is the digital content stored?
   1. Is it backed-up regularly? How?
   2. Are there security measures in place? (e.g. permissions needed to access, password protection)
10. Does the digital content contain any sensitive data? (e.g. personal data, proprietary information about the organization that should not be shared)
11. Are there any particular risks to the digital content?
12. How long do we need to preserve and retain the digital content for?
13. Has there ever been any data loss?
    1. Could the digital content be recreated if it were lost?
14. Is access provided to the digital content? (e.g. to other colleagues, research partners, members of the public)
    1. Who are the current users of the content?
    2. Are there any other groups who might use the content in the future?
    3. Are there any ethical issues in relation to providing access? (e.g. the content includes information first nations/Indigenous peoples or vulnerable groups)
15. Are there any other people you think I/we should talk to as part of this information gathering process?
16. Is there anything else you would like to add?

The core recommended headings cover key information you may wish to capture in your DAR. The list is not, however, exhaustive in terms of the information you could capture and you may wish to expand on the headings depending on how you will use your DAR and they types of content and processes you have at your organizations. This page has a list of additional headings you may consider including in your DAR Template. As with the core recommended headings, these have been drawn from a collection of in-use DARs.

The following is a list of additional resources that can help with planning, building, and maintaining your DAR. Use this as a reference point for further reading on the subject.

General Resources

Novice to Know-How: Digital Preservation for Beginners training – A training course offering a practical introduction to digital preservation.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/prof-development/n2kh-online-training

The Digital Preservation Handbook – An authoritative and practical guide to digital preservation.

https://www.dpconline.org/handbook

Awesome Digital Preservation – A community-owned list of resources for digital preservation.

https://github.com/digipres/awesome-digital-preservation#get-started  

DPC RAM – A broadly-scoped maturity model for digital preservation that supports benchmarking of current capabilities and future planning.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/implement-digipres/dpc-ram

NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation – A maturity model focusing on the more process-orientated elements of digital preservation.

https://ndsa.org/publications/levels-of-digital-preservation/

DPC Topical Notes Series – A set of 2-page introductions to key digital preservation issues written in plain English for use in advocacy and when talking to non-specialists.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/discover-good-practice/tech-watch-reports#topical-notes-series   

The National Archives (UK) Digital Preservation Workflows – Guidance on how to establish digital preservation processes at your organization.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/advice-and-guidance/managing-your-collection/preserving-digital-collections/digital-preservation-workflows/  

Advocacy

Executive Guide on Digital Preservation – A guide containing messages and motivators that can be used to communicate with senior executives, legislators, and budget holders, as well as decision and policy makers, about digital preservation.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/implement-digipres/dpeg-home

Business Case Toolkit – A toolkit to help with preparing a business case for securing resources.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/implement-digipres/business-case-toolkit

The Bit List – A list of “digitally endangered species” that can aid with advocacy.

https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/champion-digital-preservation/bit-list

Characterization Tools

DROID - https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/manage-information/preserving-digital-records/droid/

FITS - https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/fits

Siegfried - https://www.itforarchivists.com/siegfried/

JHOVE - https://jhove.openpreservation.org/

Data Accessioner - https://github.com/digitalpowrr/DataAccessioner

Risk Management

DiAGRAM – A tool to help with managing risks to your digital content.

https://diagram.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

SPOT – A model for understanding technological risks.

https://www.dlib.org/dlib/september12/vermaaten/09vermaaten.html

DRAMBORA – A model and tool to allow practitioners to audit digital preservation risks.

https://www.dcc.ac.uk/tools/drambora

Metadata

Dublin Core - https://www.dublincore.org/

PREMIS - https://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/