Watch the Digital Preservation Awards ceremony, which took place online for World Digital Preservation Day on 5th November 2020.
Meet the Winners
NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation Revision Project
2020 Winner of the International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation presented by Anthea Seles and Neil Grindley
The updated Levels of Digital Preservation represent a codification of current technological practices for long-term preservation of digital resources in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. These guidelines are presented in an easy to understand matrix designed to be useful for newcomers and experts alike. The redesign looks at five functional areas of digital preservation and recommends a tiered set of practices that map to four increasingly robust levels of digital preservation. Available in multiple languages, this update also includes an assessment tool and technological implementation guidance for using the levels.
2020 Winner of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) Award for Research and Innovation presented by Neil Chue Hong and Sally McInnes
The Levels of Born-Digital Access provides a tiered set of format-agnostic practices to facilitate and improve access to born-digital materials across five distinct areas -- Accessibility, Description, Researcher Support and Discovery, Security, and Tools. In addition to defining a set of recommended baseline access requirements, the Levels also lays out concrete and actionable recommendations that institutions can implement according to their needs, resources, and abilities. Developed using an iterative and collaborative approach, the Levels document is responsive to practitioners’ and researchers’ needs, while also serving as a potentially inclusive model for future standards development.
2020 Winner of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications presented by Marcel Ras and Sheila Morrissey
The Digital Records Curation Programme (DRCP) is a volunteer-led initiative of the International Council on Archives’ Africa Programme aiming to build capacity among African archival educators. It took existing free resources, packaging them into easy to use teaching materials for low-resource environments. The DRCP recognises that digital records are proliferating in organisations, industries and countries not always well-equipped to manage and preserve them, compared to technical know-how developed and used in more highly-resourced contexts. DRCP materials constitute a modular course that can be adapted by lecturers to suit the local working context, delivered ‘as is’ or integrated into existing curricula.
Lotte Wijsman with ‘The Significant Properties of Spreadsheets: Stakeholder Analysis’
2020 Winner of the National Records of Scotland (NRS) Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation presented by Susan Corrigall and Angela Beking
Spreadsheets are reliant on software that could become obsolete. When this materialises, the file must be converted to an alternative format and, as a consequence, a loss of information could occur. It is therefore important to define what is significant and should be preserved. This study develops a framework on how to assess which properties stakeholders deem to be significant. Statistical analyses combined with a Spreadsheet Complexity Analyser show that objective criteria of a spreadsheet are strong predictors of significant properties. This study also provides guidance to archives for best practices concerning stakeholder analysis in the context of significant properties.
2020 Winner of the DPC Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third Sector presented by Karen Sampson and Neil Jefferies
UNHCR is at the forefront of one of the most critical crises facing the world in the 21st century – that of displacement. 75.9 million people - 1 percent of the world’s population - have fled their homesdue to conflict or persecution. Preserving ‘the history of now’, for present and future generations has never been more complex or essential. UNHCR Records and Archives Section (RAS) preserves not just the legacy of UNHCR work but also of humanity. Though small in size, it supports a global staff of over 17,000 and has an ambitious vision.
2020 Winner of The National Archives (UK) Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy presented by John Sheridan and April Miller
The UK Web Archive celebrated its 15 year anniversary in 2020. From its beginnings, UKWA has drawn attention to the value of communication on the web, the high risk of loss for this content, and the need for a national programme to preserve digital communications. UKWA has made a sustained and powerful public case for the preservation of born digital communication and publication in the UK, and has worked collaboratively with libraries and other institutions around the world to support web archiving.
Find out about the Digital Preservation Awards 2020 Finalists
Drawing together the finalists' presentatations from the #WeMissiPRES event in September 2020, hear our Digital Preservation Awards judges as they introduce and reflect on the excellent, inspiring and innovative people and projects they have encountered throughout the awards process.
Watch and learn about each of our incredible finalists as they tell us more about their work.
The International Council on Archives Award for Collaboration and Cooperation
NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation Revision Project
NED: National eDeposit service for Australia
Dutch Digital Heritage Network
The Software Sustainability Institute Award for Research and Innovation
Levels of Born-Digital Access
DiAGRAM (the Digital Archiving Graphical Risk Assessment Model created by the Safeguarding the Nation’s Digital Memory project)
Oxford Common File Layout (OCFL) v1.0
The Dutch Digital Heritage Network Award for Teaching and Communications
Creating Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation
Spanish Language Webinars Program in sound and audio-visual digital preservation
Digital Records Curation Progamme
The National Records of Scotland Award for the Most Distinguished Student Work
Andrew Davidson with 'Fraserburgh on Film'
Badar Al-rhabi with 'The maturity level of digital preservation in Sultanate of Oman's institutions: a comparative study'
Lotte Wijsman with 'The Significant Properties of Spreadsheets: Stakeholder Analysis'
The National Archives Award for Safeguarding the Digital Legacy
Preserving the League of Nations digital archives
UK Web Archive: celebrating 15 years
Amplifying change: A history of the Atlantic Philanthropies on the island of Ireland
The DPC Award for the Most Outstanding Digital Preservation Initiative in Commerce, Industry and the Third sector
A new way of sharing nursing history – Royal College of Nursing member and public digital archives
UNHCR Records and Archives
The Digital Preservation Awards are made possible by the expertise and support provided by our international panel of Judges, and funding from our sponsors.
Angela Beking, Library and Archives Canada
Abbie Grotke, Library of Congress
Roxana Maurer, Bibliothèque Nationale du Luxembourg
Sheila Morrissey
Neil Chue Hong, Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)
Natalie Harrower, Digital Repository of Ireland
Sally McInnes, National Library of Wales
Marcel Ras, Dutch Digital Heritage Network (DHN)
Susan Corrigall, National Records of Scotland
Neil Jefferies, Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford
Sharon McMeekin, Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)
Karen Sampson, Lloyds Banking Group
Joanna Fleming, State Library of New South Wales
William Kilbride, Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)
April Miller, World Bank Group
Anthea Seles, International Council on Archives
Neil Grindley, Jisc
Kirsty Lingstadt, University of Edinburgh
Laura Molloy (Chair), Oxford Internet Institute / CODATA
