March 15, 2019
Community Transition
By Sam Meister and Katherine SkinnerEmbracing transformative change in a digital preservation community
Digital preservation is, by definition, a long-term commitment.
Libraries, archives, and museums engaging in this crucial work must actively plan to maintain digital assets through decades, centuries, and millennia. As such, these organizations must both anticipate and welcome change.
When the Educopia Institute helped MetaArchive Cooperative to formalize as a membership community and service in 2007, we embedded change-management principles deeply within MetaArchive’s community-driven structure. In its first twelve years, this award-winning service has become known as a trustworthy, durable solution for digital preservation storage and a strong, dynamic community of support for diverse practitioners. (more…)
Community Transition
Digital preservation is, by definition, a long-term commitment. Libraries, archives, and museums engaging in this crucial work must actively plan to maintain digital assets through decades, centuries, and millennia. As such, these organizations must both anticipate and welcome change. When ... Read More
Community Acceleration
The question of when to tackle formal strategic planning is a tricky one for any community. Strategic plans can be powerful instruments for communities that are ready for them, but at some stages of community development, a labor-intensive planning process ... Read More
Making Community Spaces Safer…
We deserve a better organization. We deserve a better profession. What happened to me and what happens to so many others cannot be allowed to continue. - April Hathcock “ALAMW: What Happened, and What Should Happen Next” All of us ... Read More
Community Validation
After a community has formed and coalesced around a central set of ideas, the next step on the path to maturity is to test the community's validity. In this crucial "validation" stage, communities often need to strike a careful balance ... Read More
Grassroots Formation
In 2014, my colleague Zach Vowell and I proposed a consortial model for long-term access to software and software-dependent data - we called it the “Software Preservation Network” (SPN). A year later, our institutions, California Polytechnic State University and the ... Read More
Community Cultivation, Revisited
I actually tried to stand in the way of Educopia's founding! I’m the first to admit it. A dozen years ago, I was the naysayer. I really didn’t think we could sustain a nonprofit organization centered on the science of ... Read More
Library Publishing Curriculum: Pilot Experiences
The Library Publishing Curriculum has been created in 2018 as part of the "Developing a Curriculum to Advance Library-Based Publishing" project, generously funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In 2018-2019, we are piloting this open, freely available curriculum in ... Read More
Digital Preservation Declaration of Shared Values: Call for Community Feedback
The digital preservation landscape is one of a multitude of choices that vary widely in terms of purpose, scale, cost, and complexity. Over the past year a group of collaborating organizations united in the commitment to digital preservation have come ... Read More
Celebrating the origins and growth of SouthernSpaces.org
There are few things I've accomplished in my career that I'm as proud of as the work I did to help found SouthernSpaces.org. Today, our roundtable interview about its origins and early growth has been published--it provides a window into ... Read More
Promote Your Collections, Promote Our Collective Histories
We know that our choices as archivists, librarians, and curators matter. The historical record is largely shaped by what we gather, what we provide access to, and whose voices we preserve. In this moment, we want to ignite the power ... Read More
Educopia and UNC-SILS receive IMLS funding to study OSS implementation to improve workflows for born-digital materials
The Educopia Institute and the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) have been awarded a grant worth over $681,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for OSSArcFlow, a project to investigate and support the adoption ... Read More
Educopia’s ETDplus Toolkit is now live!
The IMLS-funded ETDplus Toolkit is an approach to improving student and faculty research output management. Focusing on the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) as a mile-marker in a student’s research trajectory, it provides in-time advice to students and faculty about avoiding common ... Read More
MetaArchive Cooperative Receives 2017 George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Award
The MetaArchive Cooperative was bestowed the 2017 George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Award for its commendable work in the digital preservation field. This award pays tribute to individuals or groups that “foster collaboration for preservation” by demonstrating leadership, vision and initiative ... Read More
Educopia Study Finds Library, Archives, and Museum Employees Asking for Professional Development
ATLANTA - January 18, 2017 – Today, Educopia released its Self-Identified Library, Archives, and Museum Professional Development Needs 2016 Edition report revealing a strong shared desire for continuing education and professional development across these cultural fields. Sixty-nine percent of library, archives and ... Read More
Presentation by Educopia’s Sam Meister at IFLA 2016 mentioned in ALA Article
Disaster preparedness is often discussed in human terms: how to prevent loss of life or home during or in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster. But what about our library collections? How can we keep them safe in ... Read More
Public libraries share their digitization success stories
From ALA member news CHICAGO— Digitizing your collection is not only a great way to increase access to your materials, it also engages patrons on a whole new level and helps communicate your library’s value. But with staff time and ... Read More
Publication Announcement: LAM Education Needs Assessments: Bridging the Gaps
Authored by Christina Drummond, Tom Clareson, Laurie Gemmill Arp, and Katherine Skinner, LAM Education Needs Assessments: Bridging the Gaps aims to introduce guiding principles and practices for CE/PD needs assessments from beyond the Library, Archives, and Museum (LAM) spheres of reference ... Read More
Resource Released – Getting to the Bottom Line: 20 Cost Questions for Digital Preservation
The MetaArchive Cooperative is pleased to make available a new cost resource to assist institutions with their comparative analyses of various digital preservation solutions, both community-based solutions (e.g., MetaArchive) as well as vendor-based solutions. Getting to the Bottom Line: 20 Cost ... Read More
BitCurator Users Forum 2015
Event Description Join BitCurator users from around the globe for a hands-on day focused on current use and future development of the BitCurator digital software environment. Hosted by the BitCurator Consortium (BCC), this event will be grounded in the practical, ... Read More
BitCurator Consortium Launches
The Educopia Institute is pleased to announce the launch of the BitCurator Consortium (BCC), a new independent, community-led membership association to support the curation of born- digital materials by libraries, archives, and museums. Members of the BitCurator user community have ... Read More
