SPEC Kit 325: Digital Preservation · 39
There has been a significant investment in creating, collecting, and now preserving digital resources over the last two to
three years.
There has been an increase in both electronic records required to be maintained by the libraries and more digital
acquisitions for special collections resulting in needed more staff time and funding.
There was no library-wide effort underway three years ago.
This is an area the library is currently very invested in developing and several recent hires were made in the past year for
research programmers to help develop an additional digital repository.
Three years ago we had not yet begun to think about digital preservation in any meaningful way. Now we have a FTE
dedicated to this area as well as several FTE who are engaged in digital preservation discussions on a regular basis.
We are in the process of recruiting staff to increase support of preservation and other areas. However, these positions
have not been filled, yet.
We have been tasked with providing an even greater focus on digital preservation and development of our platform,
which means the same amount of staff investing more time. Unfortunately, consistent cuts to our funding at the state
level over several years means less funding is available than when we started.
We have experienced overall cutbacks in the last three years. Most staff positions have been preserved, but we have
been unable to significantly fund training and storage in ways that are needed.
We have had trouble keeping a Coordinator of Digital Initiatives. We have had the same one now for almost two years,
so more time is spent on this. We invested in CONTENTdm, thus increasing our spending.
We hired additional staff and require their time, along with a project management team to roll out the institutional
repository.
We hired two digital library developers in the last three years.
We’ve successfully grown endowed funds for some of this activity.
Within the last three years we have hired a Digital Collections Curator and Digital Library Architect to better position
the Libraries to invest in digital preservation efforts. Projected/known funding reductions/cuts will impact future
investments in infrastructure and staffing.
14. In the next three years, do you expect the number of staff, amount of time, and funding deployed
for investing in digital preservation to increase, decrease, or stay about the same? N=49
N Increase Decrease Stay about the same
Staff 49 30 1 18
Time 49 36 1 12
Funding 49 34 4 11
Number of Responses 49 39 4 22
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