Dear Collagues,

We’re writing to provide an update on the 2018 National Agenda for digital stewardship.

Over eighty institutions responded to the NDSA-wide challenge survey. Based on these responses, the challenges ranked most important and difficult challenges preservation institutions are:

• Identifying and evaluating effective digital preservation practices

• Advocating for resources to support digital stewardship programs and activities

• Developing effective cost models for digital stewardship

• Maintaining ongoing integration, interoperability, and collaborative projects

• Integrating digital stewardship practice and thinking across an entire organization

• Economic and political pressures

Your survey responses also pointed to a number of important initiatives and tools in the preservation space. Members of the agenda working group will be following up with individual survey participants this month to learn more about members’ institutional plans and tools.

In parallel working group members have developed an bibliography of key reports in the field, and are reviewing these to identify potential items to add to the NDSA agenda envrionmental scan: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0BzQOHEAU8PYVcmJDTVQ3WkpDa0U.

A preview of 2018 agenda updates will be presented at NERCOMP 2018, March 26-28th, Providence, RI. The full 2018 NDSA report will be presented at DP 2018.

Sincerely,

Micah Altman

The NDSA National Agenda Working Group