As this calendar year comes to a close, I’m thinking about my favorite work highlights from this past year. I’m happy to say there have been many, but Preservation Week tops my list.

Library of Congress staff talking about caring for digital photos during our 2010 Preservation Week event. Credit: Abby Brack.

For the past few years, the Library of Congress has celebrated ALA’s Preservation Week, holding public outreach events to promote the importance of preserving personal collections. The Association has done a fantastic job advocating for the role libraries, archives and other cultural heritage organizations can play, informing patrons about how to save family memorabilia and to pass them on to future generations. We’ve been really excited to contribute to this awareness by sharing our personal digital archiving guidance.

We’re also really interested in finding new and better ways to communicate digital preservation at the local level. Last year, we developed our Personal Digital Archiving Day Kit prior to Preservation Week.  A toolkit of resources aimed at libraries, archives and other cultural institutions staff, it provides them with information about planning and holding a personal digital archiving day program.  By sharing with their patrons with these simple, clear steps about preserving their personal digital collections, libraries and archives can create great outreach opportunities providing valuable information.

Here at NDIIPP we’re already thinking about activities for Preservation Week 2013 (April 21-27). Practicing what we preach, so to speak, we’re spreading the word early, encouraging local libraries and archives to also plan ahead. Hopefully the Kit can provide some assistance with that. We’ll be talking in more details about our planning efforts on this blog, so check back over the next few months.

If you’re interested in putting on an event, I’d encourage you to look at ALA’s Preservation Week web site, follow them on Twitter and facebook, and check out what other institutions are doing to recognize the week.  Also, think about collaborating on a program with your community memory organizations. It’s a great way to stress the shared commitment individuals and local libraries and archives have for caring family memorabilia in all formats.

While I’ve got your attention, I’d also like to put a plug in for the 3rd annual Personal Digital Archiving conference, Feb 21-22 at the University of Maryland.  The program will be announced early in the new year.