The NEDCC, funded by IMLS, has announced several free digital archivvy tools for archivists, librarians and museum professionals. I’m glad to see that the disaster planning tool has been scaled and streamlined for smaller institutions – the original tool was a bit unwieldy for me to recommend to my colleagues at smaller cultural heritage organizations.
dPlan: The Online Disaster Planning Tool, is currently being used by more than 2,400 individuals to write institutional disaster plans. dPlan Lite, a streamlined response tool, will be made available by October 2, 2008, to simplify the process for smaller institutions: www.dplan.org
Preservation 101 is a free distance-education course on preservation administration designed especially for practitioners who don’t have ready access to training opportunities. It is also useful as a handy reference for professionals who receive inquiries from the public: www.preservation101.org
Toolkit on Surveying Digital Readiness contains checklists and information to help institutions contract for an in-depth survey of the preservation needs of their digital holdings. The tools also support digital preservation consultants who undertake such surveys: www.nedcc.org/resources/digtools.php
Toolkit on What’s Wrong With This Picture contains readings and resources on preservation and digitization of photograph collections, based on a highly successful three-day workshop series: www.nedcc.org/resources/wwwtptools.php
Preservation Education Curriculum is an instructor’s guide for a semester-long preservation course for graduate programs in librarianship and archives. It includes 13 detailed lesson plans with activities, assignments, and readings, as well as an online image library to help illustrate each lesson. The balance of topics represents consensus among a national advisory committee of preservation experts and educators: www.nedcc.org/curriculum/lesson.introduction.php
The Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness (COSTEP) framework is a cooperative planning process for area-wide disasters that brings together state agencies, cultural institutions, emergency management agencies, and first responders: www.nedcc.org/services/disaster.costep.php
A new edition of NEDCC’S Preservation Leaflets, updated and expanded, will be available by December 2008. It includes new topics such as disaster planning for digital assets and moving library collections: www.nedcc.org/resources/leaflets.introduction.php
