NDSA:Stack Exchange
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The NDSA:Innovation Working Group has taken the initiative (thanks to Trevor Owens, Jane Mandelbaum, Micah Beck and Jefferson Bailey!) and started a Digital Preservation Q&A site on Stack Exchange. This idea is the result of some of the discussions at the NDSA Joint leadership meeting (See below for more background information).
This is similar to the "Digital Preservation Forum" we were establishing as part of the "Digital Preservation in a Box" activity, but it wisely places NDSA activity in the context of other things that are already happening and I believe it will have a great chance of success than a destination we have to build, maintain and staff on our own.
Here are 3 things you can do that will only take a few minutes to help get this idea off the ground.
1. Sign up and follow the proposal for the Digital Preservation Stack Exchange Q&A site. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/39787/digital-preservation
You will see it has been defined as: "Proposed Q&A site for librarians, archivists, curators, data managers, information specialists, computer scientists and engineers and other professionals working to ensure long term access to digital objects"
2. Vote for FIVE (5) of the suggested questions that you think are the best questions. THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT. To go past this initial definition phase of the Stack Exchange Q&A site creation process, the Digital Preservation proposal needs to get at least 40 questions which each have at least 10 votes.
3. Add a few questions that you think serve as examples of the kinds of questions you would like to have answered.
4. Forward this email on to anyone or any email lists that you participate in that you feel would be interested in participating in this initial phase (to get the Q&A site created).
The resulting Digital Preservation Stack Exchange site would not be an NDSA site, it would provide a public place where NDSA members could help build a knowledge base of technical Q&A. As a result, the site would potentially provide a common space for any number of digital preservation experts in both the national and international community to collaboratively build that knowledge base. So, feel free to forward this to any other organizations or professional associations that might be interested in recruiting their members to participate.
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- Some Background on this idea:
One of the points of consensus in the joint NDSA leadership meeting was that there was considerable value in the kinds of exchanges of technical knowledge that are happening between some members of the NDSA community. The outreach working group has explored setting up their own web forums, but it seemed that leveraging existing Q&A platforms for these kinds of technical discourse could give us more bang for our buck. Stack Exchange seemed like a natural first place to look at. As a result, Micah Beck, innovation working group co-chair, solicited ideas from NDSA members over the NDSA-ALL list and we put up this initial proposal for a Stack Exchange site.
- Some Background on Stack Exchange:
This is how Stack Exchange defines itself. "Moto: expert answers to your questions. Stack Exchange is a fast-growing network of 85 question and answer sites on diverse topics from software programming to cooking to photography and gaming. We build libraries of high-quality questions and answers, focused on the most important topics in each area of expertise. From our core of Q&A, to community blogs and real-time chat, we provide experts with the tools they need to make The Internet a better place." See http://stackexchange.com/about for more information.