Since the 1960s, digital preservation has transformed from a secondary activity at a select few cultural heritage organizations to a vital international effort with its own best practices, standards, and community. This keynote presentation and paper presents an overview of the changing scope of digital preservation, issues, and strategies for digital preservation in the cultural heritage community.

Since the 1960s, digital preservation has transformed from a secondary activity at a select few cultural heritage organizations to a vital international effort with its own best practices, standards, and community. This keynote presentation and paper presents an overview of the changing scope of digital preservation, issues, and strategies for digital preservation in the cultural heritage community.

In the 1960's Peter J Scott and colleagues at the now National Archives of Australia developed a new way of documenting records known as the Australian 'Series' System. Adopted by public records institutions in Australia and New Zealand, and selectively around the world, this approach forms the basis of the National Archives Commonwealth Record Series (CRS) system. In 2018 following views expressed that digital records pose a serious challenge to traditional ways of contextualization it was decided to review the CRS system in this respect. This paper looks at the process of that review and the eventual development of an enhanced model merging concepts from PREMIS with the CRS to enable a more flexible approach of documenting records in all forms.

The paper will focus on a project at Kent State University using a local oral history digital collection. The project displays the potential of how the application of an additional layer of geospatial information into an existing digital collection can improve user access and provide alternate methods to browse material (geographically). Transcriptions from the May 4 oral history collection at Kent State University were analyzed and tagged at any point there was a mention of one of the location points of interest. A new website was created where oral histories could be browsed using a historical map from the time period (spring 1970). This paper will outline the project and provide some initial steps for other institutions to begin such a project.

Access to collections is expanded through digitization, but are we saving the "best" volumes, which volumes are the best, and how do we make that decision? Capturing "real" collection data to objectively make and support those decisions is part of Library of Congress (LC) research. Current data suggests that most cultural heritage institutions have digitized less than 10% of their collections, so preservation of the print record is critical for long-term access to this knowledge. This is especially true for 19th and 20th century paper-based materials, where mass production methods resulted in less stable paper. Moving from subjective to objective based data for retention and withdrawal decisions is critical for the robustness of the print corpus and the future of digital collections.

Archives, libraries, and commercial firms are utilizing new advanced imaging methods for research into cultural heritage objects. New technical systems, including the latest multispectral (MSI) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging systems and higher resolution cameras raise major challenges for not only the integration of new technologies, but also the ability to store, manage and access large amounts of data in archives and libraries. Recent advanced imaging of ancient Syriac palimpsests (parchment manuscripts with hidden texts embedded within them) demonstrated an approach that utilized multiple imaging techniques and integration and analysis of data from multiple sources. Three palimpsest imaging projects (Archimedes Palimpsest, Syriac Galen Palimpsest, HMML Palimpsest) supported research with a range of advanced imaging techniques with MSI and XRF, requiring implementation and standardization of new digitization and data management practices for the integration, preservation and sharing of advanced image data.

Digital Preservation has evolved from an early-stage field based heavily on research and the sharing of information to a nascent industry based on practical activity. In this transition there is a risk that the vital activity of sharing information and expertise declines in favor of the day-to-day practicalities of caring for content. This work explores how the Preservation Action Registries (PAR) Initiative can not only help to bridge the gap, but in doing so, create new opportunities that can help make automated digital preservation a practical reality even for non-expert users by describing a proof-of-principle demonstration of the automated application of Digital Preservation Policy, and subsequent changes to that policy.

The Digital Production Lab in John C. Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee, like many university imaging studios, has long relied on a seasonal and temporary labor force drawn from our student body. Improving human-computer interaction in our production workflows should reduce training time and errors while increasing throughput and worker confidence. In this paper, we present our on-going efforts adapting Elgato's Stream Deck XL hardware to control a computer running Apple's macOS operating system and Phase One's Capture One Pro software using Python and AppleScript code. The paper outlines our custom code linking these parts together, describes how this relatively inexpensive input device streamlines our digitization process, and includes ideas for future application.

Machine Learning and IIIF are popular topics today when it comes to digitisation projects and digital humanities. But are these really practical topics or just buzzwords? Are these rather exclusive technologies of some elite cultural and research institutions? Or can everyday digitisation projects with less exquisite materials really benefit from such technologies? The example of the community around the open source software Goobi shows what the reality of numerous digitisation projects really looks like. What is no longer just theory and can be used in everyday life without having to develop software yourself? And what added value can actually be expected here?