Originally minted in 2013 (original Matrix at NDSA’s OSF site), the Levels of Digital Preservation provide a matrix by which to assess and guide one’s digital preservation program from a technological point of view. In early 2018, the NDSA sent out a call to the larger digital preservation community asking for interest in updating the Levels of Preservation.  Response was high – 125 individuals responded from across North America and beyond! NDSA then convened the Levels of Preservation Working group, which divided up into subgroups to tackle the many areas the community wanted to see addressed in a Levels Reboot. These subgroups included:

• Revisions: charged with updating the Levels Matrix, including the normalization of language across the functional areas and levels.
• Implementation: surveyed the community to see how the Levels had been used in the past and what people did and did not liked about its structure and content.  This information (survey results at NDSA’s OSF site) was one of the sources used to assist with the revisions.  This subgroup collaborated with the Revisions subgroup on an implementation guide Using the Levels of Digital Preservation: an overview for V2.0.
• Assessment: explored how the Levels had been used to assess digital preservation efforts (report at NDSA’s OSF site), and have developed an Assessment Tool based on the updated Levels Matrix.
• Curatorial: charged with identifying and crafting the basis of a series of discussion and decision points around how collections materials can be mapped to the Levels and other elements within an organizations’ preservation strategy.

The next steps will be to create a subgroup to address the development of strategy and additional materials to support the Levels of Digital Preservation v2.0 educational and advocacy efforts. Please contact Bradley Daigle at ndsa.digipres [at] gmail [dot] com if you are interested in working on this or being added to the Levels of Preservation Google Group.

Dan Noonan is one of three newly elected members of the Society of American Archivists’ Nominating Committee. His term will run from August 2018 until August 2019. The complete slate of election results can be found here: https://www2.archivists.org/news/2018/2018-saa-election-results.