NDSA:Annual Awards Team
How can the digital stewardship community do more to recognize and encourage innovation in the field?
This team is planning the first slate of annual awards, to be given out at next years July meeting. The group will pick the specific set of awards we want to accept nominations for, decide on how we want to do nominations, and presumably, make the decisions on who will win the first set of awards. For more information, see this blog post on the awards project.
Working Group Members
- Rachel Frick, CLIR, RFrick@CLIR.ORG
- Jennifer Ricker, State Library of North Carolina, jennifer.ricker@ncdcr.gov
- Jason Kucsma, Metropolitan New York Library Council, jkucsma@metro.org
- Barbara Taranto, New York Public Library, btaranto@nypl.org
- Jefferson Bailey, Library of Congress, jbailey@loc.gov
Background on Project
That was the central question posed to the participants of And the Winner Is…, a workshop hosted by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Working Group at the Make it Work Conference.
Participants in this workshop laid the groundwork for the creation of a slate of awards to recognize achievement in digital preservation. To be clear, this is not about monetary awards. First and foremost, the goal of these awards is to help the membership of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance recognize and encourage innovative and important work in the field.
This post invites you into the conversation and discussion from the workshop. What kinds of awards would help recognize and encourage work with important collections, tools, services, organizations and student projects related to digital stewardship and preservation?
At the workshop, participants proposed some categories for awards. These included awards for research and development, innovative practices and valuable events and meetings. One idea involved the creation of “external awards.” That is, awards which draw attention to work of legislators, researchers or organizations who have made significant impacts on the field, but that are not particularly engaged in the digital preservation community. Along with these ideas, the group was particularly excited about awards to recognize and encourage graduate and undergraduate student work. For example, awards for best student project and or best student paper related to digital stewardship.
Beyond the specifics of any award, the workshop attendees agreed that any awards process must involve transparency and consistency. Further, the group agreed that the particular slate of awards could be flexible and iterative, allowing for the creation and retirement of any individual award on an annual basis.
Meeting Minutes
Awards
The NDSA 2012 Annual Recognition Awards Action Team has created the bottom four categories to award for innovation in digital preservation.
- Individual Award
This award recognizes an individual making a significant, innovative contribution to the digital preservation community.
- Project Award
This award recognizes a project whose investigation, research, or outcomes represent a inventive, meaningful
- Organization Award
This award recognizes an organization taking an innovative approach to providing support and guidance to the digital preservation community.
- Future Stewards Award
This award recognizes a student or educator taking a creative approach to advancing knowledge of digital preservation issues and practices.