New Members – NDSA Blog

NDSA Welcomes One New Member in Quarter 3 of 2024

As of September 2024, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome one new applicant into the membership. Please join me in welcoming our new member! To review our list of members, you can see them here.

The Archive and Heritage Digital Curation Group

In their application, The Archive and Heritage Digital Curation Group noted that they are “a specialised consulting services that ensure that your archival processes meet regulatory compliance and standards.” They continued to note that, “We provide comprehensive support in archiving, records management, metadata management, disaster preparedness, and environment scanning to safeguard your valuable collections. Both from a IT systems and Archives and Records Management perspective. We also do digitisation from equipment to physical digitisation, collection building and storage.”

NDSA Welcomes 1 New Member in Quarter 2 of 2024

As of June 2024, the NDSA Coordinating Committee voted to welcome one new applicant into the membership. This member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your working and interest group calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members! To review our list of members, you can see them here.

The Gates Preserve

On their website, The Gates Preserve, “believes that archiving is a statement of value. Taking the time to gather, contextualize, catalog, and articulate the moments of an individual, a culture, or a subculture is critical to its legacy persisting into the future. We believe in thoughtful, carefully constructed legacies that are presented and shared in a way that honors its subjects. This is what we’ve attempted to do here.” In their application, The Gates Preserve states that they would “like to be in alignment with associations that are doing work in alignment with the services they offer their clients” and the activities and commitments in digital preservation.

NDSA Welcomes Two New Members in Quarter 3 of 2023

As of September 2023, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its two most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members! To review our list of all members, you can see them here.

~ Bethany Scott, NDSA Coordinating Committee Vice-Chair

Loras College Center for Dubuque History

The Center for Dubuque History is home to many rare images, documents, and AV materials, and they are committed to making them more accessible through digitization. They are still in the early stages of this process, but after attending a Digital POWRR Institute, they are on their way and are eager to join a group where they can both learn and share our experiences with others as they gain expertise.

Open Preservation Foundation

The Open Preservation Foundation are a global not-for-profit membership organization working to advance shared standards and solutions for the long-term preservation of digital content. Through the development of open source tools, they enable memory institutions to preserve their digital collections. Two of their staff are already contributing to NDSA by being part of the DigiPres Program Committee.

NDSA Welcomes Four New Members in Quarter Two of 2023

As of June 2023, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its four most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Read the brief introductions of each below, keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members! To review our list of all members, you can see them here.

Hamilton College Library and Information Technology Services

Hamilton College Library and Information Technology Services’ activities include: supporting digitized special collections content; developing procedures and guidelines for digital preservation, both within the library and to support faculty partnerships; developing a digital preservation roadmap that relies heavily on the NDSA Levels of Preservation to assess and visualize their starting point and progress. Looking ahead, they anticipate born digital archival collections growing, and plan to select a storage solution suitable for long-term digital preservation.

Hamilton College is interested in joining NDSA to seek continuing education to support and grow their commitment to digital preservation, to join a community of practice where they can both benefit from the knowledge of others and contribute back to the field, and to increase their connections in the digital preservation professional community.

Texas State University

The Texas State University Libraries is committed to digital preservation of library and cultural heritage assets held and created by all departments, including Wittliff Special Collections, University Archives, Institutional Repository and data management, and general collections. Key initiatives completed by Texas State University Libraries’ Digital Preservation Committee include obtaining secure designated server storage for digital preservation content, and creating process to request increases in this storage; writing a Digital Preservation Policy; implementing Archivematica; and purchasing space and support for DuraCloud via the Texas Digital Library (TDL) digital preservation service DuraCloud@TDL. Committee members are active locally in TDL, regularly presenting and sitting and chairing committees. Texas State University Libraries looks forward to opportunities to contribute to NDSA initiatives and collaborate with colleagues in the field internationally.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Libraries sought to join NDSA in order to contribute to and be a part of national standards and best practices for digital preservation. They currently preserve digitized and born-digital content from their Historical Collections, including the UAB Archives and the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library. In the near future, they plan to expand this to include web archiving, A/V materials, and 3D models and digital reproductions. Down the line they anticipate work on preserving complex digital objects, such as software, multimedia theses, and digital humanities projects.

University of Rochester

In the past few years, the University of Rochester (UR) has made a concerted commitment to building out a robust digital preservation program to ensure the digital assets entrusted to UR’s stewardship are available far into the future. This has involved contracting with Preservica as a technology solution, hiring two full time staff dedicated to the work (a Digital Asset Management Lead and Digital Asset Management Analyst), building out a policy portfolio to characterize and support the work, and providing a consistent funding stream for all the above.

UR works extensively with digitized special collections (including large amounts of A/V), born digital archival materials, and web archives. The University of Rochester desires to continue to deepen involvement with this work by joining with other practitioners to learn from the wealth of knowledge present in the community and to contribute back to it by sharing what is learned over the course of UR’s work, as well as by engaging in professional service opportunities through NDSA.

NDSA Welcomes Three New Members this First Quarter of 2023

As of March 2023, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its three most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members! To review our list of all members, you can see them here.

James Madison University

James Madison University Libraries is formally building out their digital preservation program and working closely with AV materials from our Special Collections. They also recognize the pressing need to more strategically engage with web archiving, to capture more fully the complete context of the creative and scholarly activities from our communities. They are developing integrations between their preservation system and their discovery and description systems, and look forward to being part of NDSA to more comprehensively engage with the wider community on these points.

Namibia University of Science and Technology

The Namibia University of Science and Technology Library Digital Collections is responsible for the acquisition, arrangement, description, indexing, storage, disposal, and dissemination of NUST’s historically valuable institutional documents such as study programmes, past exam papers, annual reports, VHS tapes that have been converted to mp4 videos, audio and images taken during NUST events. Through joining the NDSA, they plan to benchmark and explore more ways to ensure long-term preservation and access for this valuable content.

Syracuse University Libraries

While Syracuse University Libraries has been committed to confronting the implications, challenges, and rewards of digital preservation for many years, they have more recently formalized this commitment. In 2021, they established a new Department of Digital Stewardship, which signals both their commitment to digital stewardship in all its forms, providing support to digital scholarship by centering activities of digital production, provision of access, description, object management, and digital preservation. This new department also provides an organizational framework and locus for this activity at Syracuse University Libraries. By joining NDSA, Syracuse University Libraries furthers its commitment and capacity to this work.

NDSA Welcomes Two New Members

As of 13 December 2022, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome two recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members.

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University‘s library has been involved in digital preservation work for over a decade, primarily preserving master digitized files and in recent years, accepting more and more born-digital manuscript items and web archives. Their archive currently holds 87 TB and about 2.5 million files, and they currently add between ten and fifteen TB each year. They are growing their Digital Initiatives department, and seeking to better develop policies, workflows, systems, and outreach in order to ensure the longevity of their important digital collections. They are looking forward to engaging with national peers in the conversations, research, collaborations, and initiatives surrounding the art of digital preservation.

KRIA: The Icelandic Constitution Archives

KRIA is a community effort to gather and make openly available the content around the citizen-driven Icelandic constitutional reform process. In 2011, Iceland rewrote its constitution using an historically open approach. This offered an inspiring new way to think about how citizens can participate in policy reform using available technology. What resulted was a draft constitution that was affirmed by a public referendum. Iceland’s proposed constitution has not yet been ratified by Althingi (the Icelandic Parliament), but the initiative is still alive and gaining international attention. However, the ephemeral nature of digital-born content poses a threat to the constitutional process materials safety and public access. The KRIA archive hopes to make this information available as a resource for the community, scholars, and future generations. Among the partners in this effort are the Icelandic Constitutional Society, Icelandic National Archives, the University of Washington, the University of Iceland, and peace building nonprofit Build Up.

~ posted by Hannah Wang, Vice Chair of the NDSA Coordinating Committee

NDSA Welcomes Six New Members

As of 13 September 2022, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its six most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members.

~ Hannah Wang, Vice Chair of the NDSA Coordinating Committee

Africa Media Online

Africa Media Online operates a digital trade route enabling the custodians of African collections to get those collections from the cupboard to the audience they want to reach while maintaining custodianship over those collections. Their vision is to enable Africans to tell Africa’s story. The digital trade route includes: training, consulting, digitization service, digital preservation, and licensing.

Archives of the American Jewish Left in the Digital Age

The Archives of the American Jewish Left in the Digital Age, which will be linked to the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History at New York University, takes as its subject the emerging publications, organizations, and activities initiated by a new generation of young American Jews who on their own responded to the cultural trends, political concerns, and technology of the twenty-first century. Because of the nature of digital technology, this project offers an opportunity to show that what will be history in the future can be captured in the present with historical consciousness.

Botswana International University of Science and Technology Library

Botswana International University of Science and Technology is a relatively young university having started operating ten years ago. The university library is therefore still developing and is interested in participating in any endeavor that ensures that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable to its users. As a growing library that has to make do with a shrinking budget, digital preservation is very important to them in ensuring that whatever valuable information they have is preserved for continued access and use. The library has started a project called “Presidential collection @BIUST” that seeks to preserve the legacy of the sitting and former presidents of Botswana through digitization of such content.

El Colegio de México

El Colegio de México is a Mexican institute of higher education, specializing in teaching and research in social sciences and humanities. The library is actively creating a digital preservation unit.

Milwaukee County Historical Society

As one of, if not the, largest repository for Milwaukee County history, the Milwaukee County Historical Society is committed to improving their digital preservation and accessibility efforts. With over a million photos in the collection along with thousands of manuscript collections, documents, and other assorted records, MCHS is embarking on efforts to digitize and make available as much material as possible. As part of this effort, they strive to learn, implement, and collaborate on the best possible practices for a repository of our size and nature. Digitization projects for both preservation and accessibility include photos, naturalization records, manuscripts, and books and ledgers of historical importance.

Tuskegee University

The Tuskegee University Archives includes material documenting the history and growth of Tuskegee University, the Civil Rights movement, and general history of Afro-Americana. Books (including faculty publications), manuscripts, Tuskegee University periodicals and newspapers, ephemera, photographic images, disc and tape recordings, and other archival items are available for research under supervised conditions.

NDSA Welcomes Three New Members

As of 14 June 2022, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its three most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members.

Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, Inc.

Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator supports contemporary emerging artists who explore and experiment with new forms and themes that challenge traditional definitions of Caribbean and Latin American art. Diaspora Vibe is an IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) awardee that has worked in partnership with the University of Miami’s Special Collections and Digital Library of the Caribbean at Florida International University to preserve, digitize, and increase access to its archive focusing on artists from the Caribbean and Latin American Diaspora.

Rochester Institute of Technology Libraries

RIT Libraries has been committed to and engaged in digital preservation activities for seven years. They are excited to become active and engaged members of NDSA in order to learn and develop strategies that will enable them to make a stronger case locally for development and implementation of a digital preservation infrastructure. They are most interested in the areas of infrastructure, sustainability, and standards and best practices.

University of Texas at Arlington Libraries

UTA Libraries focuses on web archives using Archive-It, preserving born-digital related to the collecting areas of UTA Special Collections in the UTA Libraries Digital Archive, powered by Preservica, and preserving data in the Mavs Dataverse with the assistance of the Texas Digital Library. They are excited to be a part of the larger international conversation surrounding digital preservation, staying up-to-date with technological change, and monitoring new developments in the digital preservation field.

Posted by Hannah Wang, Vice Chair of the NDSA Coordinating Committee on behalf of the Coordinating Committee

NDSA Welcomes Four New Members

As of 8 March 2022, the NDSA Leadership unanimously voted to welcome its four most recent applicants into the membership. Each new member brings a host of skills and experience to our group. Keep an eye out for them on your calls and be sure to give them a shout out. Please join me in welcoming our new members.

Quantum Corp

Quantum Corp’s goal is to be the leading provider of management and storage services for unstructured data. They mainly focus on designing solutions to address the problems associated with managing and the storage of large data repositories and archives.

University of Cape Town Libraries

University of Cape Town Libraries is particularly interested in growing broad-based general awareness, basic understanding, and active participation in their digital preservation systems & services for the university as a whole. Their burgeoning network of Data Stewards & Champions, an interdisciplinary community of practice working to develop and maintain a vibrant, sustainable data culture, is an important vehicle for this.

Vanderbilt University Library

Vanderbilt University Library is interested in learning from others’ digital stewardship experiences as well as sharing theirs with the NDSA community. The Library currently holds digital archives with audiovisual, textual, and image-based content. They are using several different systems to archive them, including Glacier, ArchivesSpace, Archivematica, Fedora, and Portico. The Library preserves a number of collections, including the TVNews archive and Vanderbilt yearbooks.

WiLS (Wisconsin Library Services, Inc.)

WiLS is a non-profit membership organization that facilitates collaboration and innovation in order to advance library service in the state of Wisconsin and beyond. Since 2005, WiLS has provided consortium management and leadership for the Recollection Wisconsin statewide digital collections program. Notable and recent WiLS digital stewardship projects and initiatives include Recollection Wisconsin’s Curating Community Digital Collections program (IMLS), the Digital Readiness Community of Practice implementation project (NHPRC), mentorship of two national cohorts of tribal libraries engaged in community memory projects (through the IMLS’s Accelerating Promising Practices initiative), and their work with the Ho-Chunk Nation and other Wisconsin tribal communities to increase their capacity in digital collections development and management.

~ Hannah Wang, Vice Chair of the NDSA Coordinating Committee