The National Digital Stewardship Alliance: Community, Content, Commitment

A collaborative effort among government agencies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and business entities to promote the preservation of a distributed national digital collection for the benefit of citizens now and in the future. Community-driven, action-oriented An initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) at the Library of Congress

Membership 124 member organizations have joined the NDSA since it was founded in July 2010 Diverse public and private sector membership Open to any organization committed to the preservation of digital cultural heritage

Highlights Taking care of over 150 billion digital cultural heritage items Web sites, texts, images, geospatial data, datasets, TV broadcasts, motion pictures, sound recordings, government records, business records

The Library of Congress and Members of the NDSA are committed to serving as digital stewards of America's national digital collection and employing standards, systems, and cooperative relationships that advance digital stewardship. Members commit to pursuing and participating in collaborative stewardship endeavors for at-risk digital content. Promote the issue of Digital Preservation to stakeholders Objectives

Working Groups Members commit to participating in one of the five working groups of the Alliance Content Infrastructure Innovation Outreach Standards and Practices

Content Identify content already preserved, investigate guidelines for selection of significant content, and match orphan content with NDSA partners who will acquire the content, preserve it, and provide access to it Registry of content Clearinghouse to ID at-risk content, match orphan collections Guidance on appraisal for local government information Surveys of DP activity, web archiving in particular

Infrastructure Identify and share emerging practices around the development and maintenance of tools and systems for the curation, preservation, storage, hosting, migration, and similar activities supporting the long term preservation of digital content Computer forensics for appraisal, processing Specialized communities, GIS, social science data

Highlights Preservation Storage System Survey conducted % of membership keep copies in multiple geographic locations Results published on The Signal

Innovation Encourage and share innovative methods of digital preservation practices and technologies in order to distribute, document, and share emerging concepts, while conducting and guiding research and development with engaged partners to explore new solutions and opportunities Awards program Case studies of DP challenges Identify gaps, needs

Highlights NDSA Innovation Awards Recognizing innovation in the field of digital stewardship Four categories: Individual, Project, Organization, Future steward Nominations by May 18, 2012 at

Outreach Build relationships with stakeholder communities. Identify and assess tools the NDSA community needs for communication, Identify, prepare and promote key digital preservation information resources. Recognize and act on opportunities for outreach within the NDSA and to the larger community Establishing a clearinghouse of digital preservation information Utilizing social media tools to spread the DP message Design public awareness campaigns

Highlights “ Digital Preservation in a Box” A gentle introduction for a general audience of professionals who work with digital information but have no digital preservation experience

Standards and Practices Facilitate a community-wide understanding of the role of standards in digital preservation and how to use them effectively to ensure durable collections Conducting broad surveys of institutions responsible for digital preservation to: Reveal current and ideal digital preservation staffing levels and functions Identify the standards and best practices that are actually in use at these institutions

Highlights WikiProject Digital Preservation Improving Wikipedia’s coverage of digital preservation and the organization of information and articles on the topic

More information about the Alliance is at / Read about NDSA work on The Signal blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/