News

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) has made a new Technology Watch Guidance Note on Understanding user needs: A case study from the National Library of Scotland by Chris Fleet available on general release today, following a 1-month DPC Member preview.

Access is an important element of digital preservation workflows and ultimately information is preserved so it can be used: so, understanding what users need is a key aspect of successful digital preservation. This case study is a real-world example of how this has been done at one institution, with constraints of time, expertise and resource. It demonstrates how a rich seam of information on user needs can be gathered through a variety of interactions with users and how this can help inform future activities and decision making.

"Understanding user needs is an essential part of planning for digital preservation and access and something that is encapsulated in the latest version of our Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM),” explains Jenny Mitcham, Head of Good Practice and Standards for the DPC.

[Une version française suit]

Adding to a range of other translated resources, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to share translations of two Technology Watch Guidance Notes: Preserving Databases and Developing an Access Strategy for Born Digital Archival Material.

Now available in French, the Technology Watch Guidance Notes complement the DPC’s popular Technology Watch Report series and are designed to be a ‘bite-sized’ papers containing information about the specific challenges, approaches and implementations of digital preservation pertaining to access and to databases.

The DPC has released a new 2022 interim report on the ‘BitList’ of Digitally Endangered Species today for World Digital Preservation Day on 3^rd November.

The Global List of Digitally Endangered Species (The BitList) offers an accessible snapshot of the concerns expressed by the global digital preservation community with respect to the risks faced by diverse types of real digital content in varied real-life conditions and contexts. It provides an elementary assessment of the imminence and significance of the dangers faced by different, and at times overlapping classifications of digital materials. By identifying the urgency of action and significance of content, the BitList draws attention to those digital materials that, in the view of the global digital preservation community, require urgent action to remain viable.