From Meme to Machine - How Our Gen Z Digital Preservation System has Come of Age
Establishing good digital preservation practices is a daunting task for many cultural heritage institutions. While this work is guided by several theoretical frameworks, there is no universal blueprint for how to employ them. At the University of Texas Libraries (UTL), we have maintained simple yet robust digital preservation strategies and infrastructures for over two decades. Before we knew it, we were stewarding 16 million digital files that comprise over 500 Terabytes of material. Now, the library’s current digital preservation practices are reaching crucial scalability limitations as the digital archive continues to grow. In this presentation, we will discuss how UTL’s Digital Stewardship Unit assessed current workflows, identified improvement areas, and created a five-year digital preservation strategy to implement a standardized, updated, and automated digital preservation system. Focusing on the importance of project management, collaboration, and advocacy, our digital preservation strategy tackles the ongoing challenges of digital preservation. By building this strategy first, we progressively aim to effectively manage the continued growth of digital content and maintain its integrity and usability into the long-term future.