Introducing the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education Network (DPOE-N)

Anthony Cocciolo, acocciol@pratt.edu

In this presentation, Dean Anthony Cocciolo from the School of Information will introduce the work of the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education Network (DPOE-N). DPOE-N supports digital preservation education and outreach in the nation’s libraries, archives, and museums, and has been supported by a $1.2 million investment from the Mellon Foundation. 

DPOE-N was created by the Library of Congress in 2010 to provide digital preservation training across the US. The program transitioned to Pratt Institute School of Information and New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program in 2018 to further develop it and support it into the future.

DPOE-N supports digital preservation in LAMs through a number of activities. Its largest program is a microgrant program where cultural heritage professionals, including emerging professionals and COVID-impacted professionals, can apply for professional development funding in the area of digital preservation from a wide variety of providers.  DPOE-N also offers a free workshop program across a variety of topics in the digital preservation landscape, such as web archiving, command line tools and python for digital preservation, and anti-racist digital preservation practice. Upcoming workshops include topics around environmentally sustainable digital preservation practice. As DPOE-N has operated much of its time during the pandemic, it is pleased that, this March, it will host a digital preservation workshop for cultural heritage professionals at the University of Puerto Rico. Additional work is underway to support Spanish-speaking communities with digital preservation.