Product Innovation, User Experience and the Future of Digital Preservation: Preservica Global User Group 2017

Last week I was privileged enough to be a part of Preservica’s Global User Group Meeting, taking place this year at the stunning venue of Magdalen College, Oxford, UK. The event was open to all Preservica users and comprised two full days of presentations, interactive workshops and discussion.

It was wonderful to meet with more than 70 of our customers who travelled from across the globe to be there. This year’s event was the largest to date, with attendees from Universities, National Archives, Libraries & Museums, Public Sector, Corporations and Pan-National Agencies, all united and committed to raising the profile and shaping the future of digital preservation.

The Preservica User Group is a diverse and vibrant community for collaboration on best practice in digital preservation, and an opportunity to share valuable knowledge and experiences. We heard presentations from Manchester University Library, Cumbria County Council and Royal College of Nursing who described their unique digital collections. We also had presentations from Unilever and the Trustees of Reservations who showcased their projects, and shared how they had engaged with stakeholders in their institutions to make preservation and access to long-term digital assets a value-adding reality.

My personal highlight was a fascinating talk from Euan Cochrane of Yale University. Euan demonstrated the ground-breaking digital emulation work that he and the team at Yale are undertaking, and he also described some recent innovations, such as two-way synchronisation between Yale’s ArchivesSpace catalog system and Preservica. There was also a very engaging talk delivered by William Kilbride from the Digital Preservation Coalition, focusing on the wider societal imperative for digital preservation and role of technology standards and innovation.

The event was an enormous success, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended and contributed to the discussions. We’re already looking forward to the Preservica US User Group Meeting in Portland, Oregon in July. Until then!

Mike Quinn
CEO, Preservica