Curating Community Digital Collections: Final Cohort Update

Where has the time gone? It’s August and the Recollection Wisconsin consortium is winding down Curating Community Digital Collections (CCDC) and helping our year two (and final) cohort wrap up their digital preservation projects.

The IMLS-funded CCDC program placed UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee information graduate students in small or under-resourced cultural heritage institutions across Wisconsin to complete a summer digital preservation project with support from a professional mentor. It’s a unique opportunity for students to develop critical skills in digital curation and digital stewardship while helping their host sites develop and sustain digital preservation efforts. And we’re thrilled to have built a new community of practice around digital preservation work within the state of Wisconsin through collaborative learning and hands-on projects.

We were fortunate to have AVP Senior Consultant Amy Rudersdorf help develop and deliver our second Immersion Workshop in May 2019. This three-day event focused on digital preservation training prepared our teams to begin their summer projects.

The workshop content and program goals were framed around the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation with the hopes that our teams achieve (or come close to achieving) NDSA Level 1 by the end of the summer. Levels of Digital Preservation are a tiered set of recommendations for how organizations can begin to build or enhance their digital preservation activities. It is intended to be a relatively easy-to-use set of guidelines useful not only for those just beginning to think about preserving their digital assets, but also for institutions planning the next steps in enhancing their existing digital preservation systems and workflows.

CCDC 2019 Immersion Workshop, May 2019

It’s worth noting that for many of our host sites, developing digital preservation policies and workflows is a priority but it’s not their only priority. Many of them are busiest in the summer, hosting youth activities or genealogy events, running their historic village sites, or simply keeping up with their day-to-day work, interacting with donors and patrons, filling reference requests and processing collections. Having a motivated student embedded in their institution throughout the summer, and supported by a professional mentor, makes a huge difference in their ability to develop and sustain a digital preservation program.

CCDC 2019 Host Site Locations and Teams

This year, we selected ten teams to participate in our program. CCDC projects kicked off in June, with each team focusing on a few key goals: completing an inventory of digital content, exploring and making recommendations for digital file storage and backup, and developing a digital preservation policy for their institution. Other activities accomplished include developing a digital readiness plan, reorganizing and renaming folders and files; performing file integrity checks using Fixity; documenting digitization best practices; working with IT staff to manage complex digital exhibit “interactives”; and developing simple workflows for born-digital accessions.

Students traveled to their host sites and worked remotely using virtual communication and project management tools. Many had an opportunity to share their project work with their host site’s Board, volunteer staff and other community members. In addition, students completed academic requirements for their respective practicum or independent student programs at the UW-Madison iSchool and UW-Milwaukee’s SOIS.

You can read more about our students and site supervisors experiences, and their specific digital preservation projects on the Recollection Wisconsin blog.

CCDC 2019 Summer Project Work

In mid-August, our cohort reconvened in a virtual “capstone” event, to share project challenges and successes, and review each host sites’ next steps for continuing their digital preservation work.

Over the past two years, it’s been inspiring to witness the power of collaboration in practice and to support CCDC participants in their evolution from novice to skilled digital practitioners. Goals and tasks that seemed impossible in June, like creating a digital preservation plan, were rendered less intimidating and quite POSSIBLE when tackled as a team. It’s my hope that by creating this larger Wisconsin community of practice, CCDC participants will continue to feel supported and connected as they move forward in their digital preservation work.

Many of the resources created by CCDC participants, digital preservation policies, workflows and more, are available for all to review and use on the CCDC website.

Thank you to all who supported or participated in CCDC over that past two years. It’s been a remarkable journey!

This article was written by Curating Community Digital Collections Program Coordinator Vicki Tobias (). Visit Curating Community Digital Collections for more information about this project. This project is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, #RE-85-17-0127-17.