Favorite online resources to learn more about DP tools?

Question

I'm trying to gather information about some ways for folks just starting out in digital preservation to learn more about tools and resources. Any one have favorites, or know of good webinars that can offer more insight on tools? Any information sessions (preferably free) that you'd like to share that you found helpful?

I'm aware of the resources through NDSA and DPOE, and often refer to the COPTR tool grid. But I'd love to see if anyone has other favorites or has a resource they found particularly helpful. For example, the new ArchivesDirect service hosts information sessions and can be a good place for people to learn more about the new hosted service.

Thanks!

Comments

I'm very interested in this too, because I haven't found a good, non-commercial resource myself.

One of the key problems here is finding a resource that can take inventories of tools like COPTR and POWRR and create a comprehensible overview of digital preservation as a whole (ingest, metadata, storage, access, preservation planning, and management), not just the capabilities of a certain package of tools.

I'm partial to OAIS, but there isn't an approachable version of that behemoth.

The Preservica/ArchivesDirect/Duraspace/etc webinars are useful, but focus on what their tools can do, not how they interact with other tools a LAM might be using like an OPAC, ASpace, etc.

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That was kind-of the idea behind the 2nd POWRR tool grid: http://www.digipres.org/tools/ - it takes the data in COPTR and presents it in the context of the DCC Lifecycle Stages.

Happy to look at ideas for improving this.

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I keep random linkspammery at http://pinboard.in/u:dsalo/t:digitalpreservation/t:tools though you may also find http://pinboard.in/u:dsalo/t:digitalforensics/t:tools helpful. That I've bookmarked something is not necessarily an endorsement -- I can't possibly test all the things I bookmark, much less become expert in them.

I also recommend the lists at https://foss4lib.org/ If another syllabus might be handy, I keep mine for "Digital Curation" at http://dsalo.info/teaching (though I will not be teaching it again until 2017, so you may be able to find more current examples elsewhere).

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My dream resource is something that marries OAIS with the grid. It would educate users on how to conceptualize their system, allow them to choose tools from the grid to put into their system, and then spit out an OAIS-ish diagram (http://codedculture.org/assets/img/oaisfull_v2.svg) with the tools plugged in and showing gaps where the user needs more tools or policy.

Less then that pipe dream would be a bridging resource that just accomplishes the education about system planning and points to the tool grid.

Answer 1

The following suggestions originally appeared in a post on the NDSR-NY blog entitled "Weekly Digital Preservation Media Diet" originally posted on February 4, 2015 (Link to the original post is here: http://ndsr.nycdigital.org/weekly-digital-preservation-media-diet/):

• The Signal – the Library of Congress’ blog dedicated to Digital Preservation.
• Kara Van Malssen’s syllabi for the Digital Preservation course she teaches at NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, which can be found here: http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/curriculum.html#Three
• Twitter. If you’re new to this site and/or are unsure about where to begin, try searching for #digipres or #digitalpreservation and see where that takes you.
• The Digital Preservation Management Workshop website is a fantastic resource, particularly if you’re new to the field: http://www.dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/eng_index.html
• D-Lib Magazine's archives. there’s a lot of good stuff in there: http://www.dlib.org/back.html
• The Open Planet Foundation is a great resource for finding out about conferences that are happening and reports that are being released: http://openpreservation.org/
• Google alerts. Pick keywords relevant to the project you’re working on, the problem you’re trying to solve, or the subject you’re interested in learning more about. I usually have a few of these set up at any given point in time that usually include keywords like “digital preservation”, “digital asset management” “preservation sustainability” and “born-digital preservation”.

Comments

Thank you! And thank you to everyone for the great suggestions. As we continue giving the Digital POWRR Workshops across the country for the next two years, I was hoping to get a better idea of additional resources to pass along to workshop participants.