The following is a guest post by Jefferson Bailey, Fellow at the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Initiatives.
In a previous blog post, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Working Group asked: How can the digital stewardship community do more to recognize and encourage innovation in the community? Being composed of a diverse membership group with a shared commitment to digital preservation, the NDSA understands the importance of innovation and risk-taking in developing and supporting a broad range of successful digital preservation activities. Thus, we are extremely excited to announce the establishment of the NDSA Innovation Awards.
This slate of annual awards has been established to recognize and encourage innovation in the field of digital preservation stewardship. These awards highlight and commend creative individuals, projects, organizations, and future stewards demonstrating originality and excellence in their contributions to the field of digital preservation. The program is administered by a committee drawn from members of the NDSA Innovation Working Group.
These awards will focus on recognizing excellence in one or more of the following areas:
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• Individuals making a significant, innovative contribution to the digital preservation community.
• Projects whose goals or outcomes represent an inventive, meaningful addition to the understanding or processes required for successful, sustainable digital preservation stewardship.
• Organizations taking an innovative approach to providing support and guidance to the digital preservation community.
• Future stewards, especially students, but including educators, trainers, or curricular endeavors taking a creative approach to advancing knowledge of digital preservation issues and practices.
Acknowledging that innovative digital preservation stewardship can take many forms, eligibility for these awards has been left purposely broad. Nominations are open to anyone or anything that falls into the above categories and any entity can be nominated for one of the four awards. Simply put, anyone can nominate anyone and anything. This is your chance to help us highlight and reward novel, risk-taking, and inventive approaches to the challenges of digital preservation.
Nominations are now being accepted and you can submit a nomination via this quick, easy online submission form. You can also submit a nomination by emailing a brief description, justification, and the URL and/or contact information of your nominee to [email protected].
Nominations will be accepted until May 18, 2012 and the award winners will be announced May 31, 2012. The Awards will be handed out at the NDSA/NDIIPP Partners meeting at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. on July 24-26. Travel costs will be covered for recipients to attend the meeting. Winners will be asked to deliver a brief presentation about their activities as part of the awards ceremony.
Help us recognize and reward innovation in digital stewardship. Submit a nomination now!