It was 1996 when digital preservation practitioners worldwide made the first steps on the way to make DP a profession. We, as digital preservationists, can celebrate 30 years of experience in an evolving domain that was inspired by a tradition of libraries and archives: to preserve heritage material and keep it accessible for the long term.
Preserving Access to Digital Preservation
I often heard preservationists saying that it was almost impossible to keep informed about the latest insights, articles, proceedings and books about digital preservation. Although in the 1990-ties less people were working on digital preservation, the fear of missing important information was the same. There was one organisation that not only felt this need but also took the initiative to do something about it: The National Library of Australia (NLA)
The heritage organisations in Australia were early starters in digital preservation and especially the NLA deserves to be called a pioneer. In 1995 NLA published a draft version of their “Statement of principles for the preservation & long-term access to Australian Digital objects”[i]. Principle 1 (out of 7) was about collaboration. “The cooperation of all with a role in the generation, use, management, distribution and preservation of digital objects is essential.” One of the prerequisites for collaboration is sharing information. And it was this organisation that started PADI: Preserving Access to Digital Preservation. Lianne Brandis and Jan Lyall of NLA worked in 1996 to set up a website to collect information about digital preservation. They received funding from the Australian Vice-Chancellor’s Committee to support this initiative and finally in 1997 the website was launched. Although initially intended for national use, in 1997 it was available for international use.
The goal of PADI was basically to guide the preservationists in their work: “to provide mechanisms that will help to ensure that information in digital form is managed with appropriate consideration for preservation and future access.” The idea was that by collecting information and by having discussion in the related discussion list padiforum-l, preservationists together could develop strategies and guidelines.
An international advisory group was set up, in which the major players of digital preservation in those days participated. The intention was also that their organisations would add relevant topics and literature to the PADI database, managed by the NLA. Contributions could be sent by a web-based form. Apart from individual organisations (I remember at the KB National Library of the Netherlands we also nominated articles), also for example the German nestor group contributed.
After a few years, in 2001, a new facility was added to PADI: the SAFEKEEPING initiative. An international group of digital preservation professionals could nominate articles in PADI for long term preservation, based on their long-term value for the community. The US Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) supported this initiative financially.
Another important step in the history of PADI was the announcement in 2001 of a collaboration between the NLA and the Digital Preservation Coalition in the UK. Together they published a quarterly electronic publication ‘What’s New in Digital Preservation’. This was a compilation of items added to PADI and information in the JISC Digital-Preservation list.
Sadly, the lack of voluntary contributions, the fact that usage dropped off and the heavy workload for the NLA preservation department that maintained the website, forced the NLA to stop the PADI initiative in 2010. No other organisation was able to continue the work. Despite Google Scholar, the iPRES proceedings and the Web, I still think it is a pity that no successor could be found. Who today feels “fully informed” about digital preservation?
The PADI database is still available via the Australian web archive PANDORA. https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/19980205191821/http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/
[i] http://www.nla.gov.au/preserve/digital/princ.html via Internet Archive