[Michlib-l] Michigan Digital Preservation Network

[Chelsea Denault]

Greetings all! And happy World Digital Preservation Day<https://www.dpconline.org/events/world-digital-preservation-day>!

First, if you hadn’t already met me – Hello! I’m Chelsea Denault, the new MDPN Coordinator. I joined the MDPN full time in June and have been humbled by the kind and supportive folks I’ve already had the pleasure of working with. And to those I haven’t met yet, I look forward to collaborating with you in the future! I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to reach out any time, even if it is just to share an interesting article, ask a question, or say hello!

If you are unfamiliar with the MDPN and digital preservation more generally, digital preservation is a strategy for protecting digital content – like digitized archival collections, photographs, videos – and maintaining its integrity long-term. Having a safely preserved digital copy of important or rare physical materials also means that you’ll have a high-quality backup in the case of a catastrophic event like a flood or fire. MDPN, an initiative funded by the Library of Michigan and coordinated by the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services, seeks to build a shared digital preservation system for all libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies across the state in order to share resources and reduce costs among member institutions.

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We have some exciting updates from the MDPN, as well as ways to get involved with shaping the Network’s future.

First – we have a new website! You can find us at mipres.org<http://mipres.org/>. This is an ever-changing, ever-developing site, so do check in every so often. You can keep up to date with events and updates in the “News” section and more information will also be added to the Membership and Governance sections as our Advisory Committee makes determinations about those. And speaking of the Advisory Committee…

We’re looking for more interested and engaged individuals to join our Advisory Committee! Building off of the three strategic priorities – Reliable Technological Infrastructure, Financially Self-Sustaining, and Robust & Representative Member Community – the Committee discussed at our last meeting, we are looking to add some more voices to three key subcommittees that will ultimately shape the Network’s future and one ad-hoc committee for a future event:

Membership – goal of developing an equitable member fee structure, as well as enumerating what member services the MDPN will provide
Governance – goal of developing an inclusive and representative member-run governance structure
Technology – goal of identifying and selecting the hardware, systems, software, etc. of the Network’s infrastructure
Conference – goal of developing a three-track virtual conference about digital preservation for collections professionals, IT professionals, and administrators/deans

Please reach out to me (denaultc at mcls.org<mailto:denaultc at mcls.org>) if you are interested in joining any of the above committees. And do feel free to share this opportunity with your networks. We are very interested in fostering a diverse community of voices at this early stage. You do not need to have digital preservation experience to get involved, only interest in learning more.

We are also now on Twitter! You can follow us @Mi_MDPN<https://twitter.com/Mi_MDPN>. We’ll post updates about our work, opportunities to get involved, events and workshops, and more there. Follow us (we’ll follow you back, I promise) and connect us with other people, institutions, etc. in the digital preservation world who you think we should follow!

Thanks, all, for your interest and support! Stay safe and healthy out there!

Best,
Chelsea

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Chelsea Denault, Ph.D.
Michigan Digital Preservation Network Coordinator
Midwest Collaborative for Library Services
www.mcls.org<https://www.mcls.org/>
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