Digital Preservation Coalition

National Library of Australia and DPC sign Memorandum of Understanding

The DPC and NLA have signed a memorandum of understanding to work collaboratively on digital preservation activities and dissemination. PADI is a highly recommended international gateway for digital preservation developed by the National Library of Australia (NLA) with the guidance of an international advisory group.

The DPC and NLA jointly compile a quarterly 'What's New in Digital Preservation' electronic digest of selected new items added to PADI and to the JISCmail Digital-Preservation list.

In addition to pointing to padiforum-l, PADI's own discussion list for the exchange of news and ideas about digital preservation issues, PADI will also provide a direct link to the Digital-Preservation list archive from its News and Discussion area.

The Preservation Management of Digital Materials handbook - a selective, peer-reviewed, cross-sectoral introduction and guide to best practice in digital preservation - was published in October 2001. The DPC now provides and maintains an electronic edition online. This includes the PADI search function as an addition to the Exemplars and Further Reading sections of the Handbook. In future users of both PADI and the Preservation Management of Digital Materials will benefit from the shared expertise of the NLA and DPC in writing and reviewing selected topics of interest to both resources.

The NLA currently coordinates and maintains the PADI safekeeping initiative to promote the permanent preservation of selected significant digital preservation resources. As part of this initiative, the DPC will work to ensure long-term preservation of the archives of its Digital-Preservation list and the DPC web pages. It will also contribute to the shared annual selection of new digital preservation resources for this initiative. Commenced in mid-2001, the safekeeping project aims to cooperatively build a distributed and permanent collection of digital resources from the field of digital preservation. All resources incorporated in this project have been selected from the PADI subject gateway. This project has received financial support from the Council on Library and Information Services (CLIR). Its website is located at: http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/safekeeping/safekeeping.html

Both organisations will provide appropriate acknowledgements to each other for contributions made under our MOU.