March 15, 2019
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 the Educopia Institute helped MetaArchive Cooperative to formalize as a membership community and service in … Continue reading Community Transition
February 11, 2019
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 may sap energy needed elsewhere or stymie playful innovation. We’ve found that strategic planning is … Continue reading Community Acceleration
December 17, 2018
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 University of Texas at Austin, were awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services National … Continue reading Grassroots Formation
August 15, 2017
Failure as process: Interrogating disaster, loss, and recovery in digital preservation
Disaster, loss, and failure preoccupy the minds of many digital preservation professionals and yet, despite the prominence of digital disaster planning guidelines which seem to anticipate failure, there is limited discussion of experience with preservation system or network failures, which are often framed as inevitable in digital preservation. Despite this framing, negative perceptions of failure … Continue reading Failure as process: Interrogating disaster, loss, and recovery in digital preservation
August 9, 2017
Managing and Preserving Complex Digital Objects Workshop
In a 2014 survey of 795 graduate students across nine U.S. universities conducted by the ETDplus project team, more than a third of respondents reported that non-PDF files created in their thesis and dissertation research process – including research data, video, digital art, and software code – are either as important or more important than … Continue reading Managing and Preserving Complex Digital Objects Workshop
January 1, 2017
Developing a Curriculum to Advance Library-Based Publishing Grant Narrative
The Educopia Institute and the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC), in partnership with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), NASIG, and BlueSky to BluePrint, engaged in a two-year IMLS-LB21 research grant to design and implement a competency-based curriculum for library publishing. This project developed and piloted a suite of synchronous and asynchronous professional development offerings for librarians … Continue reading Developing a Curriculum to Advance Library-Based Publishing Grant Narrative
September 1, 2016
Educopia Institute Annual Report 2015
Educopia’s premise is clear-cut: modest facilitation helps communities thrive, and thriving communities have ripple effects, impacting their professions and society as a whole. At the close of 2015, I’m so grateful for our many partners and members who have invested in connecting and collaborating across institutional and sector-based boundaries. As we enter our second decade … Continue reading Educopia Institute Annual Report 2015
June 13, 2016
Library Publishing Curriculum
Quick Access Points For Students: Library Publishing Workshop (asynchronous, virtual course taught by Dr. Katherine Skinner) Overview of the Workshop Unit 1: Introduction Unit 2: What and Why Libraries Publish Unit 3: Publishing Functions Unit 4: Developing Editorial Strategies Unit 5: Content and Access Unit 6: Assessing Impact Unit 7: Policy Unit 8: Sustainability and … Continue reading Library Publishing Curriculum
March 1, 2015
Mapping the Landscapes
The Mapping the Landscapes project served to document continuing education and professional development training needs, current offerings, and potential cross-germination opportunities within and across libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs). The project collected, analyzed, and reported on data from more than 2,700 LAM survey respondents about their continuing education needs. It also produced a methodological framework … Continue reading Mapping the Landscapes
March 27, 2014
Guidelines for Digital Newspaper Preservation Readiness
Libraries and other cultural memory organizations curate a substantial body of digital newspaper content. The genesis of these collections is often a series of iterative and cumulative digitization and born-digital acquisitions with idiosyncratic and ad-hoc data storage structures that vary radically in their file types, structures, and metadata. These institutions have limited resources to expend … Continue reading Guidelines for Digital Newspaper Preservation Readiness
January 26, 2014
Preservation & Curation of ETD Research Data & Complex Digital Objects (ETDplus) Grant Narrative
Colleges and universities and the programs responsible for managing the submission, archiving, and dissemination of electronic theses & dissertations (ETDs) increasingly are concerned about administering and making available the research datasets and complex digital objects (multimedia files, software, etc.) that often accompany these scholarly works. These assets represent a rich source of information that can … Continue reading Preservation & Curation of ETD Research Data & Complex Digital Objects (ETDplus) Grant Narrative
November 20, 2013
Alignment Exemplars and Current Opportunities for Collaboration
The Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation (ANADP) II Action Assembly will align digital preservation efforts internationally between communities, including national libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, research centers, archives, corporations, and funding agencies. ANADP II will be a highly participatory event in which stakeholders will engage in facilitated discussions and action sessions to produce a … Continue reading Alignment Exemplars and Current Opportunities for Collaboration
October 18, 2012
Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation Action Assembly
The Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation (ANADP) II Action Assembly will align digital preservation efforts internationally between communities, including national libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, research centers, archives, corporations, and funding agencies. ANADP II will be a highly participatory event in which stakeholders will engage in facilitated discussions and action sessions to produce a … Continue reading Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation Action Assembly
October 4, 2012
Digital Preservation of Newspapers: Findings of the Chronicles in Preservation Project
In this paper, we describe research led by Educopia Institute regarding the preservation needs for digitized and born-digital newspapers. The Chronicles in Preservation project, builds upon previous efforts (e.g. the U.S. National Digital Newspaper Program) to look more broadly at the needs of digital newspapers in all of their diverse and challenging forms. This paper … Continue reading Digital Preservation of Newspapers: Findings of the Chronicles in Preservation Project
July 24, 2009
Nexus: Leading Across Boundaries
The Nexus “Leading Across Boundaries” (LAB) initiative, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and hosted by the Educopia Institute, is a federated, national effort involving a wide range of leadership training stakeholders from the archives, museum, and library communities. Together, we document existing practices and needed competencies, build cross-germination tools and strategies, … Continue reading Nexus: Leading Across Boundaries