Blog

Giorgia Gakas is Digitisation Lead, Neil Campbell Digitisation Centre, at Monash University Library. They recently attended the 2025 ASA Annual Conference with support from the DPC Career Development Fund, which is funded by DPC Supporters.

Monash University Library Clayton campus rests on the traditional lands of the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, the Traditional Custodians and owners of the lands where our teams work, facilities are located and the Digitisation Centre operates.

I support Monash University Library’s commitment to Indigenous self-determination and well-being by working to improve cultural safety for First Nations researchers, community members and colleagues. The Library is dedicated to decolonising collections, showcasing First Nations voices, and providing respectful, safe access to resources.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and all First Nations peoples, should be aware that this blog may contain names, stories, themes and references of deceased persons and cultural knowledges that may be potentially sensitive.

Angela Puggioni is DPC's Community Engagement Manager

As the year edges toward its close, many of us take a moment to reflect on what we’ve learned and the progress we’ve made. With that spirit in mind, we’re continuing the DPC Festive Knowledge Wrap: a four-week series throughout December that highlights different parts of the Coalition’s work, and the people who make it possible.

Last week, we unwrapped the first December Gift by spotlighting the places where DPC members meet, connect, and exchange ideas throughout the year. This week, we turn to something just as essential: strengthening the skills, confidence, and capacity of the digital preservation community. In this blog I've highlighted some of the ways the DPC supports workforce development year-round.

None of this happens in isolation. The DPC’s programmes only work because of the energy, generosity, and expertise of the community: our Members, Supporters, friends and colleagues across the world who share knowledge, encourage one another, and shape the digital preservation field together. 

 
The DPC Career Development Fund (CDF)

The CDF remains one of DPC's most appreciated programmes, giving our Members the chance to attend events, coures, workshops, training, and conferences through fully funded grants. Thanks to the generosity of our DPC Supporters - and the input we receive from our Members - the Fund helps digipres colleagues take up development opportunities they might not otherwise be able to access. Since it began, the CDF has awarded more than 200 grants across all regions, supporting learning in areas like digital forensics, audiovisual preservation and risk assessment.

We’ll continue to expand these opportunities in 2026, with new grants released throughout the year.

Novice to Know-How (N2KH)

Our ongoing partnership with The National Archives (UK) means we can keep offering practical, high-quality training to the wider digital preservation community. The N2KH programme gives you an on-demand, structured way to build and put digital preservation workflows into practice within your organization. With four courses available, N2KH has become a trusted go-to for colleagues in many regions and roles. And the best part? Every course is completely free: for both members and non-members.

DPC Competency Audit Toolkit (CAT)

CAT supports organizations in understanding and assessing the skills of staff involved in digital preservation. The toolkit offers a clear, structured process for reviewing current capabilities against the competency areas and skill elements set out in the DPC Competency Framework. Development of CAT has been supported by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and it is freely available for anyone to use! A new version was released in April 2025, strengthening its relevance and practical value for teams of all sizes. If you haven’t explored the updated version yet, this is a great moment to take a look.
 

As you unwrap the best of 2025, I hope it inspires you to think about your own learning journey: what you’ve discovered this year, the skills you’ve strengthened, and the areas you’d like to explore in 2026. And if you’re not yet a DPC Member but would like to access these and other opportunities regularly, we’d be delighted to welcome you.

Next week, we’ll continue our December Knowledge Wrap with a focus on the tools, resources, and guidance that help the digital preservation community put good practice into action. Stay tuned!

Michael Popham is Digital Preservation Analyst at the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)

Every year since we launched RAM in 2019, we’ve organized a global “RAM Jam event” to give an opportunity for both new and experienced RAM-practitioners to come together and share their views and experiences of using the DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model. These sessions provide an ideal opportunity for DPC members to learn from one another, to pick up ideas about how best to undertake a RAM, and how to make the most of the results.

Last year, the RAM Jam took the form of a round-the-world relay race, in a series of four sessions spread across different global time zones. The idea was that each session would pass on the “baton” of lessons learned to the next stage in the race, until we’d completed one full circuit of this marathon 24-hour course – and had crossed the finishing line both elated and enlightened. You can read all about it in Jen Mitcham’s race report, posted to the DPC blog.

Angela Puggioni is DPC's Community Engagement Manager

December has a way of arriving with a quiet sparkle, inviting reflection, small celebrations, and the chance to slow down as the year wraps up. This year, we’re marking the month with the DPC Festive Knowledge Wrap: a four-week series where we share one small festive “gift” each week, highlighting the parts of the DPC community that make the Coalition what it is. Because the DPC is, above all, a community, this first December Gift invites you to unwrap the places where our members meet and connect throughout the year - and we would be delighted to welcome you along in 2026!

Over the last year, we have been working with Dr Leontien Talboom on the Future Nostalgia Project. As part of that work, Leontien has been working with a range of floppy disk experts to pull together a new reference guide for working with floppy disks, called Copy That Floppy!

We know there is a lot of expertise in this area among the DPC membership, so we wanted to put out a call for comments and feedback. If you've worked with floppy disks, please consider taking a look and helping us make this guide as rich and helpful as possible! Leontien will keep the Google Document version open for comments until the end of the year, and the first official version of the guide will be published shortly after that.

Angela Puggioni is Community Engagement Manager for the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)

Today we’re celebrating something quite special: the 25th anniversary of the DPC Discussion List (DPC-DISCUSSION@jiscmail.ac.uk). For 25 years now, this listserv has been a friendly, supportive place where DPC members can ask questions, share ideas, and help each other make sense of the ever-changing world of digital preservation.

Long before remote working and virtual meetups were part of daily life, the list was already bringing people together across countries, sectors, and time zones. It has quietly hosted hundreds of conversations, from quick troubleshooting questions to thoughtful exchanges. Over time, it has become one of the things that makes the DPC community feel so open and easy to connect with.

 William Kilbride is the Executive Director of the Digital Preservation Coalition and writes this blog to officially close World Digital Preservation Day 2025

The sun has set on Hawaii and Rarotonga and so it’s time to bring the curtain down on World Digital Preservation Day 2025.  It’s also time to draw a close to the week of the iPRES Conference which has been hosted this year in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. 

World Digital Preservation Day was introduced in 2017 to enable our widely dispersed but highly fragmented community to connect with each other and to raise awareness about our work.  There are more and more new entrants into this growing and increasingly diverse network - more than 50% of the attendees at iPRES this year were first time attendees. Our colleagues work on every continent and in all manner of organizations and sectors: in medical and humanitarian agencies, law enforcement and finance, in public institutions and independent regulators.  Universities are well represented as are memory institutions. Although many of the institutions are large, the teams are small and in many cases the team is one or less.

Alison L. Joseph is Director of Digital Scholarship at Gratz College

As a library professional and academic, I love books! I think my husband of 18 years is still shocked by the number of books I brought into our marriage. Currently, we share a home office with bookshelves lining the walls. His books fill one set of shelves, while my books overflow the remaining shelves. There’s nothing quite like holding a physical book or browsing a shelf for a well-known volume by the colors and style of its cover. While it often feels like there is unnecessary tension created between the physical and digital, this doesn’t need to be the case. I can have an affinity for books and still be an ardent (perhaps, even militant) advocate for digitization.

As the Director of Digital Scholarship at Gratz College, I oversee the development and collections of our new Grayzel Digital Platform, formally launching today on World Digital Preservation Day.

Nance McGovern is Associate for Digital Preservation Practice and Instruction at Global Archivist LLC and a DPC Fellow

Happy World Digital Preservation Day 2025! The most wonderful day of the year for the digital preservation  community. And this year WDPD coincides with iPres – even better.

This year’s topic: “Why Preserve?” is making me nostalgic – conjuring up relevant experiences as a practicing archivist over more than four decades.

Kelly Stewart is Chief Archivist at Artefactual Systems, a DPC Supporter

For World Digital Preservation Day 2025, we invited DPC Members and Supporters to share their reflections on this year’s theme, “Why Preserve?”. As part of this series, Kelly Stewart of Artefactual Systems offers her perspective on the importance of safeguarding our digital heritage. Watch Kelly's vlog below to hear her thoughts!