The following is a guest post by Lyssette Vazquez-Rodriguez, Program Support Assistant & Valeria Pina, Communications Assistant
This is the second part of a three part series of posts about the 2013-2014 NDSR class, read the first part here.
As part of the nine-month National Digital Stewardship Residency program, the residents recently completed their two – week digital content immersion workshop. Topics discussed included an overview of the digital landscape, how to identify and select potential digital content, and the levels of protection required for digital content, among others.
Mary Molinaro, Associate Dean for Library Technologies at the University of Kentucky Libraries, offered the workshop covering the overview of the digital landscape and the selection and review of digital content. In her workshop, she reviewed the process of identifying and selecting content that needs to be preserved to create an inventory. As part of the workshop, the residents were able to research and compare tools used for a variety of purposes in the digital stewardship and preservation lifecycle.
The workshop “Assess and Describe Digital Collections” was well received by the residents. Carlos Martinez, Information Technology Data Specialist at the Library of Congress, was a topical instructor in this workshop. He explained how it is crucial for digital stewards to be aware of the main characteristics of files and formats that need to be addressed when preservation initiatives are discussed and implemented. During the workshop, the residents were asked to explain how they would approach tackling metadata management issues and primary issues in building and maintaining a digital preservation infrastructure.
When asked to evaluate the workshops, the residents agreed that they were impressed with the engaging approach to digital preservation’s more abstract disciplines such as computer science. Having just finished their graduate degrees, they had the opportunity to refresh theory learned in library school. They agreed on the importance of learning how to use digital preservation tools on test data to complement the theory learned in graduate school.
Now that the immersion workshop is over, the residents will go to their host institutions and start working on their projects. In the next few weeks, we will bring you an update on the progress of their projects. Good luck to the NDSR inaugural class!