The National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) invites proposals for Digital Preservation 2017: “Preservation is Political,” to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 25-26, 2017.

Digital Preservation is the major meeting and conference of the NDSA—open to members and non-members alike—focusing on tools, techniques, theories and methodologies for digital stewardship and preservation, data curation, the content lifecycle, and related issues. Our 2017 meeting is held in partnership with our host organization, the Digital Library Federation (DLF). Separate calls are being issued for the DLF Liberal Arts Colleges Pre-Conference (22 October) and 2017 DLF Forum (23-24 October)—all happening in the same location.

About the NDSA and Digital Preservation 2017:

The National Digital Stewardship Alliance is a consortium of more than 160 organizationscommitted to the long-term preservation and stewardship of digital information and cultural heritage, for the benefit of present and future generations. Digital Preservation 2017 (#digipres17) will help to chart future directions for both the NDSA and digital stewardship, and is expected to be a crucial venue for intellectual exchange, community-building, development of best practices, and national-level agenda-setting in the field.

The conference will be held at the  Westin Convention Center “where downtown buzz meets restorative sleep”, just blocks from historic Market Square, The Andy Warhol Museum, boutiques, restaurants, and nightlife. The NDSA strives to create a safe, accessible, welcoming, and inclusive event, and will operate under the DLF Forum’s Code of Conduct.

Submissions closed on May 22, 2017 at 11:59pm PT. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by NDSA’s volunteer Program Committee. Presenters will be notified in July and guaranteed a registration slot at the conference. 

Digital Preservation 2017 (#digipres17) will help to chart future directions for the NDSA, and is expected to be a crucial venue for intellectual exchange, community-building, development of best practices, and national-level agenda-setting in the field.

Digital Preservation 2017 Keynoter: Eira Tansey

Eira Tansey will open Digital Preservation 2017  with a talk (title TBD) that will explore the relationship between environmental policy and the preservation of records, and what implications this has for thefuture of climate justice.

Tansey is the Digital Archivist/Records Manager at the University of Cincinnati, where she is responsible for institutional records management, developing digital preservation policies, and working with born-digital archives. She previously worked at Tulane University Library’s Louisiana Research Collection, and has a B.A. in Geography from the University of Cincinnati, and an M.L.I.S. from San Jose State University’s School of Information.

Tansey’s research and writing focuses on the intersection of archives, the environment, and climate change. Her 2015 article “Archival adaptation to climate change” called for a broad response from the American archivist community to consider the impact of climate change on the profession and documentary cultural heritage. Her current work focuses on the relationship between records, land ownership, and environmental policy. She is also working with colleagues from Penn State University to map American archives’ exposure to climate change, and is collaborating on a Society of American Archivists Foundation grant to develop a comprehensive open  database of archival repository location data to aid future spatial analysis.

She currently serves as the vice-chair of the Society of American Archivists Records Management Section, as co-chair of the Midwest Archives Conference 2018 meeting program committee, and is resident caretaker for ProjectARCC (Archivists Responding to Climate Change). Tansey is a member of the 2017 Archives Leadership Institute cohort.