Community Survey WG

Approximately every three years, the nestor Community Survey Working Group conducts a survey among national and international communities involved in long-term digital preservation, asking about the characteristics of these networks. The results of the survey are published in anonymised form as nestor materials. Based on the survey results, profiles of communities are created and presented as a kind of registry on the nestor website, provided the individual communities agree to their publication.

The working group defines a community for digital long-term archiving as

• an open community of persons and/or institutions who engages with the subject of digital preservation. Digital preservation can be one of several topics which the community deals with.
• a community whose members are committed to digital preservation in a manner that goes beyond pure self-interest. Its central or sole purpose is not to supply a product or provide a commercial service.

• a platform for discussing the topic of digital preservation and its advancement, including the development of tools and/or the provision of services.

  It can be

  • local, regional, national or international.
  • large or small.
  • product-related or not product-related.

Goals and tasks

Due to the complexity of the task, networks and projects have played a central role in digital long-term archiving since the earliest developments in the 1990s. Only by bringing together the expertise and experience of different institutions and players is it possible to cover all facets of the complex issues surrounding the long-term preservation of digital resources.
While surveys such as the OPF Community Survey or the NDSA Storage, Fixity or Staffing Surveys are primarily aimed at long-term archiving institutions, the networks themselves have not been the focus of attention until now. Having recognised this gap, the aim of the nestor WG Community Survey is to address these networks and make the situation more transparent.
The anonymous evaluation of the survey and the profiles provide an overview of the various facets, resources and focal points of long-term archiving networks worldwide. With this offering, the WG aims to improve transparency about networking in the field of digital long-term archiving and promote knowledge transfer on this topic.
The Community Survey WG is networking nationally and internationally to raise awareness of the survey and to encourage communities to participate in future surveys and have their characteristics published as profiles.

Contact

Dr. Monika Zarnitz, ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft