National Digital Stewardship AllianceThis winter, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance turns its attention to leadership renewal. We gratefully thank our outgoing Coordinating Committee members, Micah Altman and Robin Ruggaber, for their leadership, service, and many contributions.

Members of the NDSA Coordinating Committee serve staggered three year terms.

Following a public call for nominations, we are presenting to members a slate of 4 candidates running for the Coordinating Committee. Between now and December 17, NDSA members will have the opportunity to affirm and endorse two candidates by vote. (One vote per member organization, with information sent via email to institutional contacts.)

Here are bios and statements from the candidates, presented in alphabetical order:

Stephen Abrams

After serving 10 years as associate director of the University of California Curation Center at the California Digital Library, Stephen Abrams has recently returned to the Harvard Library as head of its newly-established digital preservation program. Stephen is particularly interested in promoting the national agenda’s recommendations regarding the need for a robust evidence base to ground and guide practice, which aligns with the research program of his doctoral investigation into the theoretical and pragmatic considerations underlying assessment of digital preservation efficacy. Properly seen, digital stewardship extends beyond the domain of appropriate data management; more fundamentally, it is about facilitating meaningful digitally-mediated human communication across time and concomitant cultural distance. The challenges are substantial, and the outcomes are of the highest importance: simply put, without proactive, successful, and sustainable stewardship of our national digital heritage, no future understanding of a past time in the digital age will be possible.

Salwa Ismail

Salwa Ismail is the Department Head for Library Information Technology at Georgetown University Library where digital and data preservation are part of her portfolio. In 2016-2017, her institution was selected as an NDSR host institution through the project that she had submitted recognizing the need for a diverse workforce that is trained in issues of digital preservation from the ground up. Active in the Academic Preservation Trust (APTrust) preservation community and a strong advocate for scalability and sustainability of digital preservation solutions, she has over 14 years of expertise in directing the design and development of technology strategies and systems. As our community grapples with the issues of preservation ranging from software to web archiving and more, where scalable and not boutique solutions are necessary, Salwa with her background and expertise is interested in working with the community to coordinate strategies, which will allow the NDSA Coordinating Committee to be a more focal part of the preservation ecosystem that provides expertise and opportunity across our diverse community to work together in creating common solutions in digital stewardship for the complex challenges facing the community and the opportunity to protect availability and access to scholarly and cultural knowledge.

Linda Tadic

Linda is founder and CEO of Digital Bedrock, a managed digital preservation service provider. It serves any type of organization and even individuals. The impetus for founding the company was to help any size or type entity receive detailed digital preservation services at low cost. Clients currently include educational institutions, museums, producers, studios, nonprofit archives, distributors, and law firms. Linda’s over 30-year career began in the analog era. Her focus has been on audiovisual media preservation and cataloging/metadata. Her past positions in academic, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations, and involvement with metadata standards across disciplines, gives her a unique perspective on how cross-community digital preservation projects can be developed and implemented. She would encourage NDSA to develop cooperative projects across communities.

Paige Walker

Paige is the Digital Collections & Preservation Librarian at Boston College. She is an active member of the NDSA Content Interest Group and the NDSA Infrastructure Interest Group. Paige has a BA from UC Berkeley, an MSLIS from Simmons College, and is working on an MS in cybersecurity from Boston College. She’s interested in information and network security as they pertain to digital preservation. Paige is also a co-leader of the DLF Technologies of Surveillance Instruction & Outreach subgroup and serves on the MetaArchive Steering Committee.

 

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