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Greetings Colleagues,

Welcome to 2020!

We hope that you all enjoyed the winter holidays and a peaceful transition
to the New Year.

As we look to the year ahead, we are thrilled to share a sampling of
Software Preservation Network activities, accomplishments, and resources
from 2019. Click here
<https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/blog/spn-2019-highlights/> to
read these highlights on our website, or continue reading below:

   -

   In February, the Paris Call for Software Source Code as Heritage for
   Sustainable Development
   <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000366715.locale=fr> was
   released. Kendra Albert (Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic) represented the Software
   Preservation Network in the expert group that wrote The Call.
   -

   From March through May The SPN Steering Committee undertook the task of
   analyzing and revising SPN’s strategic goals. Dianne Dietrich (Cornell
   University) and Nancy McGovern (MIT) published a blog post about the
   process and the results.
   <https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/blog/crafting-community-goals/>
   -

   In April, we released recordings and transcripts for all 7 episodes of
   the Legal Tools for Software Preservation Webinar Series
   <http://bit.ly/legal-tools-webinars>. The series covered workflows,
   international implications, and so much more!
   -

   In July, EaaSI <https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/eaasi/>
   released the Public Sandbox featuring operating systems and software from
   over 20 years of OSS development! Countless users have since played,
   tested, and provided feedback. We invite you to explore the EaaSI Sandbox
   <http://bit.ly/eaasi-sandbox> for yourself.  Stay tuned in early 2020
   for the release of all four webinars in the Intro to EaaSI Webinar series,
   which ran from July - October. Topics included
   -

      July: “Why EaaSI? A System Overview?”
      -

      August: “Legal and Institutional Policy Framework for EaaSI”
      -

      September: “EaaSI Metadata Model and Wikidata”
      -

      October: “EaaSI Configuration Workflows”
      -

   From July to August, we had the privilege of sharing software
   preservation stories from our community. In a series of 5 blog posts, the
   following members spoke about their programs, their accomplishments, and
   their challenges:
   -

      Vicky Steeves at NYU <http://bit.ly/spn-mp-nyu> described several
      exciting projects, including Saving Data Journalism, Enhancing
Services to
      Preserve New Forms of Scholarship, and Investigating and Archiving the
      Scholarly Git Experience.
      -

      Joe Carrano at MIT <http://bit.ly/spn-mp-mit> dug into the rewards,
      challenges, questions, and conundrums of software preservation.
      -

      Sophia Lafferty-Hess at Duke University
      <http://bit.ly/spn-member-profile-duke> described what it looks like
      to get a software preservation program off the ground and how collective
      action across departments and institutions built their capacity for
      this work.
      -

      Finally, Chip German and Sherry Lake at the University of Virginia
      <http://bit.ly/spn-member-profile-uva> discussed the form and
      function of UVA's software preservation program, including their
      involvement with both FCoP and EaaSI.


   -

   Beginning in September, we were delighted to kick off the FCoP Cohort
   Reflections blog series. The following  cohort members reflected on their
   experience thus far with the "Fostering Communities of Practice" project:
   -

      Jonathan Farbowitz at the Guggenheim
      <http://bit.ly/fcop-reflections-guggenheim-1> wrote about the range
      of technology used in the museum's computer-based artworks, disk imaging
      workflows, and metadata cataloging for hardware and software.
      -

      Cynde Moya at Living Computers <http://bit.ly/fcop-reflections-lcml-1>
      reflected on emulating the “Middle Ages” of computing over
regular internet
      speeds, testing disk images with  EaaSI, and working with metadata for
      software and emulation environments.
      -

      Wendy Hagenmaier and Maura Gerke from Georgia Tech
      <http://bit.ly/fcop-reflections-gt-1> characterized their work with
      retroTECH as “skunkworks in the library,” building bridges
between data and
      metadata silos, and illuminating the people at the heart of
Georgia Tech’s
      technological pasts.
      -

       Tracy Popp at the University of Illinois
      <http://bit.ly/fcop-reflections-illinois-1> wrote about emulating
      proprietary digital audio and music notation software, local
digital format
      registry, and formalizing and scaling software curation workflows.
      -

      Monique Lassere at the University of Arizona
      <https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/blog/fcop-cohort-reflections-university-of-arizona/>
      described preserving and providing access to software as a “jigsaw
      puzzle”putting each piece in place in order to get a working
picture of the
      objective and working collectively to pool resources and knowledge so it
      gets easier over time.
      -

   *Also in Se*ptember, the Software Preservation Network joined an amicus
   brief filed with the US Supreme Court in a case related to copyright &
   state sovereign immunity! For more, hear from SPN’s Law & Policy Advisor,
   Brandon Butler, about why this case matters for software preservation
   <http://bit.ly/spn-joins-amicus-brief>.
   -

   In October, SPN was honored to receive the 2019 National Digital
   Stewardship Alliance Organizational Innovation Award
   <https://ndsa.org/2019/10/16/ndsa-announces-winners-of-2019-innovation-awards.html>
   for the work of our affiliated projects (Code of Best Practices for Fair
   Use in Software Preservation and EaaSI, in particular) and critical
   emphasis on issues of community engagement and organizational
   sustainability. According to the NDSA Awards Committee: “This work
   provides an extremely useful case study to the stewardship community of the
   importance of thoughtful and iterative self-reflection and refinement of
   organizational strategies, goals, processes, and initiatives to ensure the
   continued relevance, value, and persistence of programmatic efforts. SPN
   offers a model for digital stewardship that combines steadfast vision with
   flexibility and an emphasis on the evolving needs of the organization’s
   constituents.”
   -

   In December, SPN assisted with the design and release the Copyright
   Guide for Scientific Software
   <https://zenodo.org/record/3581326#.XhwT8EdKiiM> developed by the
   Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic and the Harvard | Smithsonian Center for
   Astrophysics. Read, Download, Share!
   -

      Also, check out the December blog post by Michael Olson at Stanford
      University Libraries
      <https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/blog/emulating-the-international-monetary-fund-government-finance-statistics-cd-roms/>,
      the first in a series in which EaaSI node teams reflect on the first year
      of the EaaSI Network.

If you would like to explore the inputs and outputs of our work, you can
join our public forum
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/software-preservation-network>,
subscribe
to our newsletter
<https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=299460903c5acd28e01011bfe&id=868297ba30>,
or check-in periodically on our website
<https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/>. We’d love to hear from you!

And don’t forget, the SPN Quarterly Community Forum is open to all and the
next Forum is scheduled for March 2020. Join the list
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/software-preservation-network> to
receive call-in information.


Sincerest thanks for reading!

Yours in Software Preservation,

Jessica Meyerson

-- 
*Jessica Meyerson*
Director for Research & Strategy | Educopia Institute <http://educopia.org/>
Software Preservation Network <https://softwarepreservationnetwork.org>
The Maintainers <http://themaintainers.org/>

Working from Austin, TX
[log in to unmask] | 512-864-4575

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