NDSA:How to Use the Resources in this Box

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What is Digital Preservation in a Box?

"Digital Preservation in a Box" is designed as a gentle introduction to the concepts of preserving digital information. Preserving digital information is a new concept that most people have little experience with. The guidance is basic and is meant to be a place to get started. There are four organizing steps to consider when preserving your personal digital information: Identify; Decide; Organize; and Copy. We'll discuss each in detail and provide some resources to help you get started.

This box of resources can be used to provide introductory-level education those who may have little to no knowledge of digital preservation and digital curation issues, to help them with stewarding their own digital information, which might include Photographs, Audio, Video, Electronic mail, Personal documents and Web archives.

The materials are geared towards a general audience who routinely create or manage digital information, but who may need a working knowledge of this area for digital preservation on the job or for training others on how to preserve digital resources. The audience includes library science students and educators; library, archive or other cultural heritage institution employees; others charged with preserving digital information as part of their jobs or for providing digital preservation training.

People are creating their own digital materials in increasingly large quantities, and they are clamoring for simple guidance on how to preserve their own digital materials.

How to Use These Resources

The resources in the "Digital Preservation in a Box" can be used in a number of ways. The resources can be used to prepare a "Digital Preservation Day" event that is designed to bring in the general public to educate them on the importance of digital preservation. A Digital Preservation Day Event is a fun and very rewarding way to make contact with the general public and share essential knowledge about preserving personal digital materials. There is detailed guidance NDSA:Marketing,_Outreach_and_Event_Guidance#Event_Guidance elsewhere on this wiki on how to hold a DPD event.

The resources can also be used to develop classroom or workshop curriculum to teach basic digital preservation concepts to high school students, college or LIS students, the general public or workplace professionals.