Staffing for Effective Digital Preservation 2017: An NDSA Report

Staffing for Effective Digital Preservation 2017: An NDSA Report. Winston Atkins, et al. NDSA. October 2017. 
     This excellent report, based on a recent survey, looks at how organizations staffed and organized their digital preservation functions, and compares it with the survey done in 2012. This is a report worth studying.

Survey respondents were from the following organizations:

• Academic library or archives (46%)
• Government entities (11%)
• Museum (8%)

"Organizations establishing or scaling up digital preservation programs are faced with many staffing, scoping, and organizational decisions. Some of the questions that need to be answered include":

• How many staff members are needed and what kinds of skills, education, and experience should they have? 
• What types of positions should the institution create? 
• Should it hire new staff or retrain existing staff? 
• What functions should be included in the preservation program, provided by other parts of the organization, outsourced, or implemented through collaboration with other organizations? 
• What organizational and staffing models work well? 

From the survey, organizations reported: 

Staffing:

• an average of 13.6 FTE are working in digital preservation activities, but ideally the organizations would double that to 27.5 FTE 
• there is a need for more digital archivists,software developers, and cataloger/metadata analysts. 
• 68% of organizations retrained existing staff for at least some digital preservation functions, 
• 42% of organizations also hired experienced digital preservation specialists. 
• Staffing for an organization managing 1–50 TB 
• Current: 10.7 FTE 
• Ideal: 30.6 FTE

Content amount and Collection growth:

• 58.6% were preserving 1–50 TB of digital content, 
• 16.5% were preserving 51–100 TB, 
• 14.3% were preserving 101–500 TB,
• 8.3% were preserving more than 500 TB. 

• 73.2% expected less than 25% growth in the collection.  
• In 2012, 68% expected up to a 49% growth. 

Preservation activities and organization:

• Most organizations prefer conducting most digital preservation activities in-house
• Only 32% of the organizations had a dedicated digital preservation department

• 46% were not satisfied with how the digital preservation function was organized within their organization
• 25% believed it was organized properly.
• Satisfaction decreased from 2012, when 43% agreed or strongly agreed that their digital preservation functions were well-organized.
• One of the most striking findings was the increased percentage of respondents who reported that they were not satisfied with the way the digital preservation function was organized

•  52% of respondents participate in at least one consortium or cooperative network. Benefits include:
• networking (68%), 
• training (57%), 
• storage space (54%) 
• Consulting (35%), 
• access interface (33%) 
• communications/marketing (28%), 
• programming (25%), 
• federated search (16%)  

• Department that takes the lead for digital preservation: 
• Library / Archives 69.1%
• Information Technology (IT) 16.0%
• Preservation department 6.2%
• Other 8.6%

Other general comments of interest about digital preservation staffing issues include:

• “Continuing education is a must, so that staff can stay up-to-date on current trends and the latest news in technology.” 
• “It should be organized keeping in mind extra skills of an individual in addition to his/her specialist skill set. 
• “Staffing is critical to success.... All the pieces must be in place for a successful digital preservation effort.”

Importance of Qualifications for digital preservation staff in 2017, in order:

1. Knowledge of digital preservation standards/best practices
2. Communication
3. Passion and motivation for digital preservation
4. Collaboration
5. Analytical skills
6. Project planning/management

Digital Preservation Matters.