International Digital Preservation Day 2017

Local State, Territory and National libraries devote a lot of time, energy and resources to storing and preserving our digital heritage collections. While you may not have access to the state-of-the-art technology and equipment that your library does, there are still steps you can take at home to ensure your digital treasures last a lifetime. Find out more.

Jaye Weatherburn, Digital Preservation Officer at the University of Melbourne, suggests that the digital age requires a shift to more long-term thinking and taking responsibility for our digital legacy – including those all-important photos we store on our mobile phones – before it's too late!

Hear from Derek Whitehead on digital dinosaurs like the videodisc and CD-ROM, underscoring the continued need to support digital preservation.

Derek is the adjunct professor in the Institute of Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology, and Chair of the Australian Digital Alliance.

Professor Cal Lee looks at the adoption of digital forensics tools and methods by galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) when storing and preserving born digital materials.

Professor Lee teaches at the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science. His primary area of research is the long-term curation of digital collections. Read the blog post.

Read the blog post by Natasha Simons, from the Australian National Data Service, discussing the 'data tsunami' created by digital technologies that's profoundly affected research.

From the Large Hadron Collider to Citizen Science projects inviting observations from the general public, these huge volumes of data can tell us amazing things about our world, and the universe beyond.

The deletion of older games from online stores is slowly eroding our video-game history. How can we 'counter this constant and ongoing erasure of one of the most significant creative forms of the late 20th century'? Find out in Brendan Keogh's blog post.

Brendan is a videogame critic and academic, lecturing in game design at SAE Creative Media Institute, Brisbane.

Go behind the scenes with Dr Kevin Molloy, Manager of the Manuscripts Collection at State Library Victoria, to learn the challenges of acquiring born-digital manuscripts.

The Library began acquiring digital materials in 2001, including the laptop used by Peter Carey to draft his Booker Prize-winning novel True history of the Kelly Gang. Since then, the collection of born-digital content has increased substantially, proving that the richness of personal digital records is just as rewarding as paper-based resources.

Learn about the digital preservation work being done by the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (VACL) to address the issue of language loss in Indigenous communities.

Peter Jetnikoff, the PANDORA Librarian at State Library Victoria, reflects on the Library's history of collecting online publications and websites.

Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia (PANDORA) was established in the 1990s by the National Library of Australia, and its collection continues to expand. Find out more about how the Library contributes to this important work in Peter's blog post.

Since the first public website was published 26 years ago, there has been an explosion of digital content – from supercomputers exploring the universe to Facebook posts shared with friends.

This 'born digital' content is tomorrow's cultural heritage, and exciting work is being conducted by libraries, including State Library Victoria, worldwide to collect and protect this digital history for future generations.

Celebrate International Digital Preservation Day 2017 with us by:

• Learning how to preserve your precious digital archives using the Personal Digital Archive Toolkit we've made available.
• Discovering how the Library is collecting, protecting and making available our state’s history in its myriad digital forms.
• Hearing from State Library staff and other experts about some of the technical, social and philosophical conundrums facing the digital preservation field today.

Join the international conversations around digital preservation using #idpd17.

Discover what Australian and New Zealand national and state libraries are doing to celebrate International Digital Preservation Day 2017.

This blog post also talks about National and State Libraries Australasia's (NSLA's) successful Digital Preservation Project, and future plans.

Sarah Slade discusses State Library Victoria's history of collecting and caring for its digital collection, and outlines its current Rosetta Implementation Project. She explains how the Library's digital preservation program allows it to ‘manage communication from the past while communicating with the future’.

Sarah is State Library Victoria's Head of Digital Engagement and Collection Services.