This is an invitation to participate in a study entitled “Software Preservation for Cultural Heritage.” Our research is part of an IMLS-funded project to establish a Software Preservation Network. With this study, we want to better understand cultural heritage practices/experiences surrounding long-term preservation and access to digital primary resources stored in proprietary file formats.

While the cultural heritage community has developed tools and workflows for bitstream preservation, the community lacks empirical data regarding the experiences and efforts of cultural heritage repositories to access material stored in proprietary file formats during appraisal, accessioning, description, and reference activities.

As part of this survey, you will also be invited to opt-in for a follow-up semi-structured interview regarding proprietary software challenges. Anonymized data from the study will be made available to the profession and software rights holders, along with analysis of current trends and possibilities for future research.

Take the survey (roughly 20 minutes): https://utexas.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eJr7lm1aCaC4McJ

Questions? Contact:

Jessica Meyerson
j.meyerson@austin.utexas.edu
Digital Archivist
Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

Zach Vowell
zvowell@calpoly.edu
Digital Archivist
Robert E. Kennedy Library
California Polytechnic State University