As it’s been on our “To Do” list for longer than I care to admit, I’m SO pleased that I can finally say that the project which will produce a 3rd Edition of the Digital Preservation Handbook is underway! In this blog post I’ll provide a quick update on how we got to this point, and describe some ways we hope the digital preservation community will be able to engage with its development.
For anyone unfamiliar with the Digital Preservation Handbook (the Handbook), it was first compiled by Neil Beagrie and Maggie Jones in 2001, with a 2nd Edition released in 2015, and it is an online introductory digital preservation resource maintained and updated by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). It looks to provide an internationally authoritative and practical guide to the subject of managing and sustaining access to digital content over time. It aims to be of interest to all those involved in the creation and management of digital content. To ensure the Handbook continues to be an authoritative resource that represents evolving good practice in digital preservation, the DPC has been planning for the development of a 3rd Edition for some time.
As community is fundamental to all DPC work, we wanted to ensure that the needs of the community were at the core of the new edition. With this in mind, we undertook a scoping project in the first quarter of 2024, funded by the Culture Division of the Welsh Government, to assess those needs and set the key aims and guiding principles for the 3rd Edition. The main information gathering elements of the project were a community survey and a set of focus groups which were open to both DPC members and non-members. We received 150 responses to the survey and were joined by 25 digital preservation community members at the focus groups. A huge thank you to everyone who participated.
The information provided was summarized in a report and also synthesized into a set of ‘Guiding Principles’ for the development of the 3rd Edition. Those guiding principles are as follows:
1. The Handbook will remain a high-level, concise, introductory resource with a mix of theory and practical advice that can be used as a touchstone for good practice.
2. The 3rd Edition will aim to be applicable to a broad range of types and sizes of organizations with different levels of resourcing.
3. The primary audience will be practitioners, particularly those new to digital preservation, to help guide the planning and development of digital preservation capabilities. However, secondary uses, such as education, training, and advocacy, will also be considered.
4. The creation of the 3rd Edition will include a robust peer review process to ensure the Handbook remains a high-quality and trustworthy resource.
5. The main format for publication of the Handbook will continue to be online, with PDF surrogates also provided. This will include a full-text PDF.
6. The 3rd Edition will be easy to search and navigate.
7. Design of the 3rd Edition will take into consideration key accessibility requirements.
8. The 3rd Edition will use consistent terminology, which will be reflected in an updated and expanded version of the Glossary.
9. The content will aim to cover current digital preservation good practice.
10. A process should be developed for regular review of the Handbook’s content.
11. The 3rd Edition will be developed with supporting translation in mind. A translation plan will be drafted to complement the main project plan.
12. The 3rd Edition will align with other DPC projects and resources.
13. The Handbook will uphold the DPC’s values of neutrality in respect to solutions, approaches, sectors, suppliers, and vendors.
Since the completion of the scoping project, we’ve been working up a full project plan for the development and publication of the 3rd Edition. This process has been based on the guiding principles, and feedback on content from the survey and focus groups, whilst also taking into consideration how the digital preservation landscape has changed in the 9 years since the 2nd Edition. This has led to the decision to quite significantly overhaul not only the content, but also the structure of the Handbook, so that it more closely aligns with key resources that have been published in the intervening years, such as our own Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM). We’ve already worked through several iterations of a proposed new structure, which will remain somewhat fluid during the research and drafting phase to allow us to make sure we are presenting information in the most useful way possible.
The result of the process described above is a plan for a major 18-month project involving every member of DPC staff contributing to the estimated total of 441 days of effort. So not a small undertaking! This, of course, does not just include the research and drafting of content, but also project management, communications, content review, developing an updated web portal, preparation for publication, and launch activities.
Although we will be investing a significant amount of staff time to the project, we also recognize that it’s important that the Handbook is not developed in an echo chamber. We will make sure to engage the broader digital preservation community in its development. Alongside regular projects updates, we hope to encourage active engagement with the development process. One of the ways this will be implemented is through the peer review process. Nothing will be published in the 3rd Edition without review by a minimum of two digital preservation community members with relevant knowledge and/or experience. We’ll be putting an open call for reviewers out in a few months’ time, please do consider taking part in the process!
More immediately though, we’d like to invite community members to help us assemble the reading(/listening/watching) list for the Handbook research phase. There are more excellent things being published about digital preservation than we can keep track of, and we don’t want to miss something great! So, is there are resource that you think is essential to helping someone understand digital preservation? (Other than the Handbook, of course!) Have you read an article that helped clear up a difficult concept? Did you hear a conference presentation that explained a really interesting practical approach? Is there a blog post you keep going back to because the advice offered is so useful?
We’d love to hear about anything interesting you’ve read, heard, or watched about digital preservation that you would describe as essential reading, listening, or viewing. And it doesn’t need to be a formal publication or conference paper. If it’s saying something useful, we want to hear it! There’s a Google spreadsheet available where you can add suggestions directly, but please do also feel free to send them on via email to handbook[at]dpconline.org with the subject “Reading for Handbook”. Any and all suggestions are very much appreciated! In addition to helping with research for the Handbook, we’ll also use the suggestions to help populate the “Further Reading” elements of each Handbook section, as well as publishing a complete reading list alongside the Handbook.
That’s all the updates for now, probably time to get on with the work itself. We really are so pleased to be starting this project and to be bringing a new Handbook to a screen near you in the not too distant future!
Share your suggestions here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cqQp7GIV2CxLZq0G8XO6g9qWmJvQsgkbkROGrAUGO_U/edit?usp=sharing