Digital preservation is an issue of interest to many Digital Commonwealth member institutions and virtually all organizations that are responsible for managing and preserving digital content. One of the keynote speakers at the 2013 Digital Commonwealth conference was Butch Lazorchak, Digital Archivist, Library of Congress. Butch is involved with the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA).
The NDSA along with NDIIPP (National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program) held an annual meeting (Digital Preservation 2013) on July 23-24, 2013 in Alexandria, Virginia. (NDSA and NDIIPP are both programs of the Library of Congress.)
Even if you missed the meeting focused on issues and some solutions relating to the challenges of caring for digital content over the long-term, thanks to two different blog posts you can read informative summaries and even view video clips of some of the speakers including Hilary Mason, the chief scientist at bit.ly; Emily Gore of the Digital Public Library of America; and Cal Lee of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is involved with BitCurator.
One blog, “Preserving Our World,” (link: http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Preserving-Our-Digital-World-digpres2013-91060.asp), written by Barbie E. Keiser, an information resources management consultant, provides summaries about the talks and links to some of the speakers’ slides and/or institutional websites.
Another post, “Digital Preservation 2013 Trip Report,” (link: http://ws-dl.blogspot.com/2013/07/2012-07-25-digital-preservation-2013.html), by Mat Kelly, includes summaries and embedded YouTube videos. Kelly’s piece is posted on the blog of Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group (a department of Old Dominion University).
Some of Digital Commonwealth’s member institutions are also members of NDSA and a few attended the meeting. Karen Cariani, WGBH (and also President of Digital Commonwealth), spoke on a panel at the Digital Preservation 2013 meeting about her workplace during the “Digital Preservation Tools” session. Digital Commonwealth will explore ways (other blogs and/or a future conference panel) for its members to hear more about NDSA and digital preservation activities.