The next generation of digital stewards

Michael Hart may not be a household name, but in 1971, he made history when he hand-keyed the text of the Declaration of Independence into a computer mainframe and made it available for public download. The act was arguably the first documented instance of the digital preservation of cultural heritage, which has become an immense effort across memory institutions worldwide.

In the years since, preservation specialists have come head-to-head with another challenge—how to ensure the longevity and accessibility of the digital artifacts they’ve created. The Boston-area National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) participants recently shared their efforts to do so in a midyear presentation session, discussing advances on projects that range from refining the audio preservation workflows of an MIT collection dedicated to jazz educator Herb Pomeroy to curating a Northeastern University collection of born-digital materials, including texts and social media posts, related to the Boston Marathon bombing.