As 2024 draws to a close, it’s time for DPC staff to take a break. What an exciting year it has been!
DPC’s mission is a welcoming and inclusive global community around digital preservation. We are deeply encouraged by the confidence members put in the DPC, and in each other. We’re now active in 25 countries with 17 new DPC Members and 2 new Supporters since the start of the year. This year also saw another action packed World Digital Preservation Day, and the kick-off of a bunch of new Special Interest Groups.
We welcomed three new staff members in 2024. Andrew Jackson joined the team in January to lead the Yale University Library funded Registries of Good Practice project, and Karyn Williamson joined in March to coordinate the DPC’s contribution to the OHOS project, the outcome of which is the Community Archives Digital Preservation Toolkit. We established a permanent presence for the DPC in the Americas in June when we welcomed Anna Perricci as Head of DPC Americas. If that’s not enough we signed a new agreement with KB-NL to host DPC staff based in the Netherlands. We also welcomed Prof. Jane Winters as the seventh Chair of the DPC, thanking Juan Bicarregui who had guided the Coalition wisely for six years.
During this past year, we’ve worked with members and colleagues to deliver lots of new resources that support digital preservation, and which have helped build relationships too: highlights include the Labour Market Analysis Report, the Digital Asset Register Toolkit which became part of the N2KH training offerings on the DPC’s learning portal, and an updated version of our Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM 3.0), all commissioned or encouraged by the community. With help from the community we’ve continued the super popular Python Study Groups, published French translations of two Data Type Technology Watch Guidance Notes, and launched the Start 2 Preserve Community Skills resource at iPRES 2024.
We awarded 11 grants to attend conferences and other development opportunities and kicked-off a new Preservation Registries Special Interest Group plus a Digital Forensics Special Interest Group, and we published a rash of new technology watch guidance notes, all commissioned to meet members’ needs. We had our first member Unconference outside the UK (in Dublin in May). We enjoyed that so much we headed back to Dublin for a procurement training event in September, and then we did a whole other member Unconference, in Canberra in October.
2024 saw the Digital Preservation Awards return, and it was a pleasure and a privilege to celebrate so many contributions from around the world, and to do so in company of the global digital preservation community in Ghent in September.
We passed an important milestone in August when New York University Libraries joined: for the first time since 2002 the majority of our members are now found outside the UK.
DPC’s branding includes a deep, ever-green colour that represents continuity and renewal, so, of all the holiday traditions, the Christmas Tree resonates for us. Instead of sending Christmas cards or gifts, we plant trees each year. So, in partnership with One Tree Planted we'll plant 170 trees this December - one tree for every member and all around the world.
These have been busy times for the staff, who will start winding down from Friday 13th December, enjoying Christmas pudding, snowball fights, beach time or barbecues (hemisphere-and-weather-depending). The office will close on Friday 20th December 2024 and reopen on Monday 6th January 2025. During that period, we will only be checking email intermittently.
There are few sights more promising than the clean white pages of a newly opened diary, matching (for some) the crisp bright glitter of the newly fallen snow. 2024 has been an amazing year for the DPC, and the best times are yet to come. So we’re looking forward to connecting with you all again in 2025, and in the meantime we wish you all a wonderful break!
