by Sara Ring
Quick Summary
Are you aware of DigiPres Commons, a community owned web portal of digital preservation resources? I recently visited and found all sorts of excellent resources. Here's a brief recap of what you will find on the site.
Are you aware of DigiPres Commons, a community owned web portal of digital preservation resources? I recently visited and found all sorts of excellent resources. Here's a brief recap of what you will find on the site. The content is grouped into the following categories:
Find Preservation Tools
The POWRR Tools Grid (highlighted in a previous Mailing article) is a vastly comprehensive list of the diverse toolset you'll need to manage digital content and solve digital preservation challenges. You can also add your own experience in using the tools by contributing to the COPTR (Community Owned digital Preservation Tool Registry) wiki.
Understand File Formats
This section will help you understand more about file formats and file format risks you should be aware of. There's a link to the "Just Solve The File Format Problem Wiki" that has very detailed information on hundreds of different file formats, and you can contribute too.
Questions, Issues and Evidence
Ask and answer questions vis the Digital Preservation Q&A, share your digital preservation war stories, or sign up to discuss issues via the Digital Curation forum.
Real Data and Requirements
You will find publicly available sample files to use in testing and evaluating your own digital preservation tools, and a link to the Digital Preservation Requirements and Solutions wiki.
Build Your Case, Get the Funding
Making the case for preservation (the staff and resources and technology needed) at your institution can be difficult and overwhelming. This section provides resources like the Digital Preservation Business Case Toolkit, othe resources to education your funders and other stakeholders about why investing in digital preservation is important. There's also a link to the Atlas of Digital Damanges image gallery; an image of lost or corrupt important data can be worth a thousand words.
Save Digital Stuff Now
There is data beyond the scope of what cultural heritage organizations keep and preserve, and what about the rest of the world? Find links to resources like the Internet Archive for saving web pages, and more to come.
