The National Archives of Ireland has today joined the Digital Preservation Coalition. The DPC is an advocate and catalyst for digital preservation, enabling its members to deliver resilient long-term access to content and services, and helping them derive enduring value from digital collections. The core mission of the National Archives is to collect, manage, and preserve the public record of Ireland and ensure its long term availability as a research resource and to underpin citizens’ rights. The long term availability of the public record demonstrates transparency and accountability in the democratic process.
Speaking today, John McDonough, the Director of the National Archives noted that ‘Joining the DPC will enable the National Archives to address matters such as the capture, curation and preservation of the public record which is increasingly generated in electronic format. The National Archives will be able to leverage experience, technical knowledge and policy development from amongst the members of the DPC. Membership of the DPC will ensure the National Archives is better placed to meet the significant challenges it faces in this area.’
In joining the DPC, the National Archives along with its sister institution the National Library, in addition to Trinity College Dublin, the Royal Irish Academy, and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland will build towards a critical mass of institutions in Ireland concerned with the growing proliferation of cultural and administrative material in digital or electronic form and the need to take steps towards its ongoing preservation and access as key components of the State’s cultural, social and administrative history.
‘We’re delighted to welcome the National Archives to the DPC’, said Laura Mitchell, chair of the DPC and Deputy Keeper of the National Records of Scotland. ‘Our generation has invested as never before in digital technologies so it falls to our great archives and libraries to ensure that future generations can enjoy, explore and exploit the vast digital legacy that we have created. But it is no easy task.
'It is a great encouragement to all of us in the digital preservation community to be joined by the National Archives in that urgent and necessary endeavour.’