The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to share its new program of activities for the coming year, 2023-2024. Focused on digital preservation topics Members around the world have specified through an annual consultation process, the prospectus outlines the DPC’s plan for 2023-2024, offering new publications, trainings, webinars, specialist briefings, as well as a range of brand-new resources.
“The coming year promises to be one of the most active and interesting in the DPC’s history. It is particularly striking to see such a compelling program co-designed by DPC Members,” says Richard Ovenden, President of the Digital Preservation Coalition, and Bodley's Librarian at The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. “The prospectus makes a concerted commitment to the digital preservation community worldwide, appropriate for an organisation which continues to grow its membership and reach internationally, making an open invitation to collaboration. Only by working together, from institutions across the globe, and from a diverse range of sectors and domains can we hope to provide the resources, tools, support and skills which will be needed to ensure a sustainable access to our digital memory.”
Highlights of the coming year include a series of events in Australasia and Asia-Pacific throughout September and October, as well as a new edition of the Global Bit List of Endangered Digital Materials (Bit List) which will be published on World Digital Preservation Day on 2nd November. And this year, the DPC will also begin work on a 3rd edition of its ever-popular Digital Preservation Handbook!
With a Membership around the world, the DPC’s program of activities is accessible across multiple time zones and geographies. The DPC shares its extensive catalogue of authoritative resources widely through its website, including reports, live streams, recordings and watch-parties of its thematic online events.
Sarah Middleton, Head of Advocacy and Community Engagement for the DPC explains why accessibility is such a key consideration in the delivery of the DPC’s activities: “With DPC members all around the world, it is critical that we enable consistent access to our activities and resources. While we move to reinstate a number of key face-to-face events on the DPC calendar in different geographic locations, we will continue to hold the majority of our events online, and in different time zones. We will also continue to improve accessibility to key resources, providing more materials in a range of languages and also expanding multi-lingual support offered at events, through translation and consultation with the global digital preservation community.”
The DPC will continue to offer free of charge ‘Novice to Know-How’ online training to the community, both the original beginner level course plus new content on email preservation, while new free training opportunities for DPC members will be developed to include: ‘Web Archiving for Beginners’ (in partnership with IIPC), ‘Risk Management for Digital Preservation,’ ‘Taking a Continuous Improvement to Digital Preservation,’ ‘Python Study Groups’ as well as ‘N2KH Plus Training Sessions for DPC Australasia and Asia-Pacific.’ Development of the courses was funded by The National Archives, UK.
A program of online events will cater for different time zones, providing insight and advice on ‘Persistent Identifiers,’ ‘Cloud-based content’ and ‘Documentation,’ as well as addressing the community zeitgeists of ‘AI and Digital Preservation’ and ‘the Environmental Impact of Digital Preservation.’ A broader range of task forces and working parties than ever will continue to provide focused peer support on specialized areas of digital preservation.
The ever-popular Workflow Webinar series will make a return to the program this year, enabling Members to exchange experiences and see ‘what’s worked’ for various parts of the digital preservation lifecycle.
The widely read series of authoritative but accessible Technology Watch Reports will continue investigations into the latest topical and technical issues encountered by DPC Members, with revisions of ‘Web Archiving’ and ‘Preservation Metadata’ both planned for the coming 12 months, as well as titles including ‘The Environmental Impact of Digital Preservation,’ ‘Disaster Planning’ and ‘Traditional Knowledge Markers’ to be developed as part of the accompanying Technology Watch Guidance Notes series.
With further updates planned this year, the DPC will invite Members to return annually to the Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM); a maturity modelling tool which enables rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability whilst remaining agnostic to solutions and strategy. Members’ RAM submissions will be collated, aggregated and offered as benchmarking information, for use in internal advocacy or as evidence to include within a business case.
Members of the Coalition receive free-of-charge priority access to all DPC events and publications, and the program is overseen by Full Members who commission research tied directly to their strategic needs.
An international charitable foundation and advocate for digital preservation, the Coalition helps its members around the world to deliver resilient long-term access to digital content and services through community engagement, targeted advocacy work, training and workforce development, capacity building, good practice and standards, and through good management and governance. Its vision is a secure digital legacy.
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Find more information about joining the DPC community and the Member benefits.
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Download a copy of the DPC Prospectus 2023-2024 (coming soon in Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Spanish)