Dear colleagues,

Yesterday, we announced to members and depositors of the Digital Preservation Network that we are winding down and sunsetting the organization.  It was a difficult decision for the DPN board and staff, but after examining the options, it was determined to be the best path to ensure an orderly transition for depositors. Since the beginning of DPN over five years ago, the organization has operated in an environment of rapid change.  We--the organization and the community--have learned many valuable lessons.   The DPN board and staff expect these lessons will contribute to future efforts to preserve valuable digital content and will also inform continuing work to sustain community-based organizations.

The following may serve to provide context for the decision to wind down DPN.

The model of preservation storage provision under which DPN currently operates is not a match for a sufficient number of institutions in today’s environment to be economically sustainable. DPN’s financial model assumed a critical mass of member institutions making large preservation storage deposits. Both the membership numbers and the scale of storage deposits have fallen below the critical mass needed.

DPN’s work has been an important, constructive learning process for the digital preservation community and will lead to new models of collaborative digital storage services.

Although DPN, in its post-research and -development phase, was not able to sustain sufficient scale to establish its desired 20 year “endowed” model, all digital data are secure and will, as needed, will be returned to depositors.  DPN is working with each depositor to determine if content needs to be returned and is developing a timetable and process for any necessary returns. Most depositors have their own preservation copies of content in addition to the DPN copies and are not expected to seek a return. Three of the DPN nodes (AP Trust, Chronopolis, and TDL) are positioned to provide digital preservation services to current DPN depositors.  DPN is will assist in that transition.

Finally, we would like to thank the community, especially the DPN members and the Node partners for the support of DPN and the progress we have made in digital preservation.

Best regards,
Mary

__________________________
Mary Molinaro
Executive Director
Digital Preservation Network (DPN)
http://dpn.org 
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859-608-6310


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