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November 07, 2024
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Noah Skogerboe working on a project in Jones Media Center
Celebrating World Digital Preservation Day, 2024

November 7th marks World Digital Preservation Day. Coordinated by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), this international day of advocacy and conversation focuses on how individuals, community groups, and institutions across the planet are working together to preserve digital culture and content in all its forms. This year, World Digital Preservation Day adopted the theme of “Preserving Our Digital Content: Celebrating Communities.” This theme prompts us to reflect on the importance of collaborative communities of practice when it comes to safeguarding our digital heritage. As we celebrate and participate in this global initiative, Dartmouth Libraries is excited to mark a significant milestone in its own digital preservation evolution. By year’s end, we’ll wrap up the first phase of an ambitious project to develop a renewed and comprehensive digital preservation strategy, which will shape how we care for our digital material.

Dartmouth Libraries Digital Preservation Strategy Project 

(Nearly) A Year of Innovation & Collaboration

The Digital Preservation Strategy Project involves assessing the work we have already done and are currently doing. The project also looks ahead to determine how Dartmouth Libraries can improve and grow its capacity for stewarding Dartmouth’s digital content in a technologically evolving and nimble world. The primary goal of our recent initiative is to create a robust, scalable digital preservation program that supports the vast and growing range of digital assets held by Dartmouth Libraries. From digitized historical manuscripts to cutting-edge research data and multimedia content, our digital collections are vital to academic scholarship and historical record-keeping. 

Ensuring that these digital objects remain accessible and intact is at the heart of our strategy and in concert with the Libraries’ broader strategic initiative to accelerate the sharing of advanced research, scholarship, and other digital creative outputs at Dartmouth and beyond. To achieve this, we reviewed our content, interrogated the difference between digital asset management and preservation, evaluated our storage capabilities, looked ahead to the types of content that we might collect in the future, and drafted policies. 

The strategy project also showcases how Dartmouth Libraries’ ongoing commitment to digital preservation has roots in a collective ethos. It involves ongoing collaboration with stakeholders across the libraries and Dartmouth more broadly: digital archivists, IT professionals, collection managers, librarians, associate deans, and more have all participated. 

We also partnered with Global Archivist LLC, a leading consulting firm in the field of digital preservation. Nance McGovern, Dartmouth Libraries’ main point person at Global Archivist, wrote a fantastic blog post for World Digital Preservation Day, which calls on people to consider their roles and responsibilities in the digital preservation sphere. Together, we created a renewed local community invested in devising a strategic framework for digital preservation at Dartmouth, one that addresses our current needs and anticipates future priorities. 

Meet Dartmouth Libraries’ Digital Preservation Strategy Team

Leading the effort is the Digital Preservation Strategy Team. They’ve taken on the responsibility of shaping and guiding Dartmouth Libraries' digital preservation efforts in 2024. Below, team members share their thoughts, areas of expertise, and approaches when it comes to digital preservation.

Deborah Howe, Kent Randell, and Este Pope fold zines

On "Why Now" for Dartmouth Libraries to Revisit Its Digital Preservation Strategy

Este Pope, Manager of Digital Scholarly Software & Systems:

  • "Now is the time to review the Libraries’ decade-old digital preservation strategy, given the complexity of the need to preserve rapidly increasing digital content. As we embark on a strategic direction that prioritizes stewardship of Dartmouth scholarship for long-term preservation, ensuring the longevity of the digital record is critical. We owe this to the future Dartmouth community."

Kent Randell, Assistant Archivist for Digital Collections:

  • "Recorded human history is now happening in zeroes and ones (Blogs, InstaPosts, videos, eBooks, emails, etc.). Without an electronic preservation program, we are entering a historical dark age." To read more about the digital dark ages, pick up Kent’s decidedly un-digital zine (pictured above) at Dartmouth Libraries or read more on Rauner Library’s Blog.

Jenny Mullins, Head of Digital Project Management:

  • "It is important to do this work as a community. Digital preservation requires collaboration with different people from across the Libraries."

On Their Favorite Digital Preservation Tools and Resources

Noah Skogerboe, Media Collections and Preservation Librarian:

  • "One of my favorite tools for digital preservation work is Wondershare UniConverter software, which is available on the computers in the Jones Media Center. I use it all the time for transcoding, which is converting an audio or video file into a different format. Oftentimes, managing digital files over time involves migrating them to new formats to keep them preserved and usable into the future!"

John Bell, Dartmouth’s Data Experiences and Visualizations Studio and the Magnuson Studio: 

  • "An interview. Many methods and tools are valid, but choosing one requires knowing why it’s useful to preserve an asset or corpus, and that only emerges when I know who might want to use it and why they see it as important."

Elena Cordova, Head of Collection Management & Preservation:

  • "Rhizome. I come out of the fine arts world, and Rhizome is an affiliate of the New Museum. It has long served as a pioneering institution and an innovation hub for artists as well as those who work to maintain and preserve collections of born-digital art. There are many other groups that serve this function too, but too many to name here!"

world digital preservation day 7th november 2024

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World Digital Preservation Day 2024 marks the culmination of an almost year-long effort by this dynamic group, but it also signals the beginning of a new chapter for the Libraries’ digital preservation work. Our digital preservation efforts not only support the academic mission of Dartmouth Libraries, but also the wider effort to protect cultural heritage in an increasingly digital world. 

We look forward to continuing our efforts, growing our community, and collaborating with others both at Dartmouth and beyond. Preservation of digital heritage is crucial to our shared future. 

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