By the end of this training workshop it is expected that the delegates will be able to:

• Explain the scope, concepts and the needs for digital preservation.
• Identify data elements and formats as used in digital files.
• Explain and use the OAIS model.
• Implement digital preservation within your museum.
• Produce a Digitisation Strategy for the museum.
• Determine issues with existing materials, including documents and audio-visual, concerning effective digitisation.
• Explain the notion of digital repositories, and design a repository model.
• Capture digital representations from documents, audio, and video, using analysis of the requirements, and evaluating the files for quality.
• Explain Project Management practices and how they can be applied in Digitisation Projects, including the design of plans.
• Explain Collection Management Practices and how they should be assessed and modified for digitisation.
• Apply digital preservation to the institution as a whole, reflecting on the existing governance framework.
• Reflect on your own knowledge and where you can best fit.
• Understand the Digital Heritage Framework and the Ten Processes and how they apply to your institution.

Collection Managers, Curators, Museum Management, Education Officers, Support Staff, ICT Personnel – from museums, archives, libraries, galleries, and any institution with heritage collections of any form.

The workshop will cover topics from the following list, adapted to the needs of the institution:

• An Action Learning approach is used, applying the theory back into practical needs at your institution.
• Assessment-for-Learning practices are used to ensure that the delegates are not being left behind, since many of the concepts and the practices will be new.
• Digital Preservation is outlined and discussed as it relates to the current and long-term needs of the institution.
• The notion of “data” is defined, and explained by example, including a dive into binary, hex, and encoding – which make up the essence of all digital objects.
• Formats are explained, with the need to migrate outdated and older formats, and the need to have programs which can render a format into a useful form.
• Storage media, and their associated risk.
• Open Archival Information Systems (OAIS) form the basis for structuring a digital archival structure, and these are introduced with Trusts Digital Repositories framework (TDR). Together these provide a powerful outline to the work required.
• Repository design and development – and whether to build a repository or to use cloud or shared services.
• Digitisation strategy is discussed, in the light of the Digital Heritage Framework as developed by ETHER, and which formed one of the bases for our work on the National Policy on Digitisation.
• Digital Capture and the associated Workflow requirements are introduced together with analysis of existing workflows and how these can be improved.
• File naming and organisation – temporary and permanent.
• Equipment for digitisation and how to select for your needs, including the option to outsource.
• Various types of digital capture are included:
  • Document digitisation, including oversize nd fragile documents
  • Photograph/slide capture
  • Video capture
  • Audio capture
  • Object capture
• Metadata standards and systems – how to capture the important elements of a digital objects and their context.
• Digital management systems – an introduction to Archivematica and its Ingest and other process.
• The linkage between collection management and digitisation.
• Project management practices for digitisation.
• A call to action for your institution – with the initial Digitisation Strategy developed within the scope of the workshop

Practical work concerning a selection of the above, with a minimum of 50% of the time allocated to practical work – which includes digital capture, strategy development, and planning.

Collection Management Best Practices (three days)

Project Management for Heritage Institutions (two days)

Archivematica (two days)

AtoM (two days)