Category: NDSA

The NDSA Agenda Working Group is pleased to announce the publication of the 2020 NDSA Agenda for Digital Stewardship! 

The NDSA Agenda, last published in 2015, represents a complete update around current advances and needs within crucial areas of focus such as digital collections, technological infrastructure, organizational policy and practice, and research priorities. Additionally, the Agenda also builds on results from the 2018 NDSA Institutional Survey on Priority Areas in digital stewardship to better articulate key areas for building research and developing practice.

The 2020 NDSA Agenda has something for everyone: key priorities synthesized for funders, researchers, and organizational leaders, as well as actionable recommendations in key areas for practitioners and communities. 

The NDSA Agenda Working group would also like to thank the community for your role in helping to shape this Agenda by participating in the survey, serving as reviewers, and pursuing the work of digital stewardship in a variety of efforts that allowed us to research, write, and reflect on how your work moves us forward together in 2020.

Best,

The NDSA Agenda Working Group

• Micah Altman, MIT Libraries, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Karen Cariani, WGBH Media Library and Archives
• Bradley Daigle, Academic Preservation Trust; University of Virginia Library
• Christie Moffatt, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health
• Sibyl Schaefer, University of California, San Diego
• Bethany Scott, University of Houston Libraries’ Special Collections
• Lauren Work, University of Virginia Library

The NDSA is pleased to announce the release of the 2019 Storage Infrastructure Survey Report. 

From May 23 to June 7, 2019, the 2019 NDSA Storage Infrastructure Survey Working Group conducted a survey designed to gather information on the technologies and practices used in preservation storage infrastructure. This effort builds upon two previous surveys, conducted in 2011 and 2013. Unlike these previous iterations, however, the 2019 Storage Infrastructure Survey encouraged responses from both NDSA members and non-members, in an effort to gather a broader view of approaches to preservation storage. 

Some major takeaways from the report include:

• The amount of preservation storage needed has continued to grow over time. Approximately 57% of respondents to the 2019 Survey indicated that they required more than 100 terabytes of preservation storage, compared to 33% and 34% of respondents to the 2013 and 2011 surveys, respectively.
• Many are responding to increasing storage needs by diversifying their infrastructure with different types of technologies. 66% reported using storage that geographically distributes copies, and 46% reported using cloud storage. Of those using cloud storage providers, 71% said they use Amazon Web Services.
• Preservation storage infrastructure remains a changing field. Over half (54%) of the respondents indicated that their preservation infrastructure was expected to change significantly within the next three years.

The NDSA intends for the Storage Infrastructure Survey to return to a more consistent schedule, allowing for ongoing tracking and analysis of approaches to preservation storage over time.  Interested in participating in the next Storage Infrastructure Working group? A call for group members will go out prior to the next survey year.

~ NDSA Storage Infrastructure Survey Working Group

Welcome to 2020! News from your NDSA

Greetings one and all. For starters, happy (belated) new year! We have had a lot on the burners this past year and 2020 will be no different. Here are some highlights (past and present):

 

Governance

We took a long and deep look at our overall governance structure. But what does that mean, exactly? Well, this time last year parts of the Coordinating Committee were meeting weekly to refocus our documentation and structure of our various components: Coordinating Committee, Interest Groups, Working Groups, etc. What we realized is that though good work was getting done, there was not coordination among all the various efforts. In other words, we were missing opportunities to leverage all the great talent from our Membership. We set out to create a structure that changes all that. In 2020, you will see new, publicly available, documentation of the various groups, their charges, and their focus for 2020. This will help us be accountable to you for all the great work that is going on. Stay tuned for more information on that!

 

NDSA Agenda

The long-awaited Agenda will be published in Q1 2020. I want to thank each and every one of you that contributed your thoughts and feedback to it! We think it is a great representation of digital preservation practice since the last one [2015] came out.

 

Interest and Working Groups (IG/WG)

So much has been going on in this area that sometimes it is hard to keep track. The NDSA Leadership (Coordinating Committee, IG/WG chairs, DLF) meet monthly to keep each other up to date and accountable. Each IG/WG has its minutes available for others to review for past and present topics and research areas. We have also created a new group – The Communications, Outreach, and Publications Working Group that will be streamlining our actual products (like the Agenda, Levels of Preservation, survey results etc) as well as focusing on a new website structure. Our updated Storage Survey will also be coming out in Q1. Lots will be happening there in 2020.

 

Levels of Digital Preservation

Many of you have been involved in this work. The Levels of Preservation is an ongoing Working Group (chaired by yours truly) and will be rolling out updates on a more frequent basis. For 2020, the Curatorial Team will be finishing up its work and the new Training and Advocacy Subgroup will be all spun up. I want to thank all of you (there were almost 100 people) who participated on the various reboot teams—from across the globe! Version 2’s matrix and the associated Assessment tool is available with more resources coming soon. 

 

New Members

One of the best parts of this work is welcoming new members. We had a banner year last year with a bumper crop of new members. Here they are!

• Clemson University
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• Roper Center for Public Opinion and Research (renewal)
• University of Miami Libraries
• University of Cincinnati Libraries
• LIBNOVA, SL
• University of Connecticut Library
• The University of Washington Libraries
• University of Louisville Libraries / William F. Ekstrom Library
• University of the Balearic Islands
• University of Colorado Boulder

We could always do more to highlight what each of you does and will work to do more of that in 2020.

 

DigiPres Conference

We had an amazing conference and turnout this past year in Tampa! Thanks to the entire planning team and DLF for all their hard work! 2020 will be held in Baltimore, 11-12 November. We hope to see you there. Keep an eye out for the CFP – coming soon!

If you are interested in learning more, participating in any part of the NDSA, let me know! Send an email to NDSA@diglib.org If you are not a member, please consider becoming one. The process is painless, I promise!

 

Wishing you all the best for 2020!

Bradley J. Daigle, Chair NDSA Leadership Team

As part of our ongoing effort to be transparent and informative, the Leadership of the NDSA approved the creation of a new working group to assist with communications about NDSA activities with the NDSA membership and beyond.  We are looking for people to join in the effort!  Any interest can be expressed by completing the following form by the end of January 2020. 

Group Purpose: To develop, enhance, and refine the communications strategy with the NDSA membership. 

Group Activities: The main expected activities of the group are listed below by public facing and operational categories.  

Public Facing Activities

• Website: Review and update website for accuracy and timely information.  Edit web pages as requested by the Leadership team.   
• Social media: Posting to NDSA Twitter etc about NDSA and member activities, publications, etc
• Blog: Coordinating and posting blog posts about activities, publications, etc
• Update the shared online events and activities calendar

Operational Activities 

• Management of Working Groups: Help monitor the processes of the multiple working groups that run on cycles (e.g. Fixity, Staffing Survey). Facilitate group timelines and work with the groups to produce their final published product. 
  • Set up a schedule of known groups that run on cycles.
  • Contact past/present co-chairs of the group prior to next iteration
  • Monitor work (if necessary)
  • Help spin group back down, collect files in NDSA google drive, 
• Survey Coordination: There are many groups that routinely survey the NDSA membership (or greater).  This group would help coordinate the timing of these surveys across all groups so the membership is not overwhelmed with surveys. 
  • Set up a schedule of known upcoming surveys
• Publications: This group would be responsible for managing and finalizing NDSA publications
  • Working with groups to know what publications are in the works
    • Recommendations for where/how to store working files, data sets, etc
  • Understanding the desired timeline for publication from the group and setting deadlines.
  • Putting publication into the official Publishing Template format
  • Reviewing publication (basic run through)
  • Publishing on NDSA OSF site
  • In coordination with public facing team:
    • Putting info on NDSA webpage about new publication (if appropriate)
    • Producing a blog post about new publication
    • Producing social media posts about new publication

 

To complete this work we are looking for individuals from NDSA member organizations to join us.  Specific roles that are needed include::

• Social Media posters/writers
• Blog posters/writers
• Teams for
  • Managing working groups and their output
  • Publications Coordinator

Any interest can be expressed by completing the following form by the end of January 2020.  It is not expected that each individual will be doing all tasks – unless they choose to do so! Participating in NDSA in this manner is a great way to understand and interact with all of NDSA activities.