Following the charge provided by the University of California’s Direction and Oversight Committee in 2019, the Digital Preservation Strategy Working Group (DPS WG) focused Phase Two activities on identifying the steps needed to build a community of practice around digital preservation in the UC Library system with the primary goal of preparing a path for collective action in the stewardship of the content types held in common by the ten campuses and CDL. To this end, the DPS WG developed a taxonomy of digital content types to serve as the basis for a systemwide digital asset inventory, designed a comprehensive survey instrument administered through interviews with 44 individuals across all campuses and CDL, and conducted a literature review regarding relevant economic models for sustaining a digital preservation program.

In the Fall of 2018, the Direction and Oversight Committee (DOC) formed the Digital Preservation Strategy (DPS) Working Group with the charge of (1) developing a practical, shared vision of digital preservation for library content, and (2) outlining a roadmap to guide the UC Libraries in advancing that shared vision. The DPS Working Group will fulfill this charge in multiple phases, and this report presents the results of Phase One, which lays the groundwork for further discussion and, ultimately, recommendations on the policies, strategies, and actions required for the digital preservation of the millions of digital assets held across the ten UC campuses and the California Digital Library. Specifically, the Phase One report focuses on three areas: (1) an overview of external digital preservation service providers (exemplar organizations), including consortia, vendors, and university-based providers; (2) background information on current and planned UC libraries’ digital preservation activities; and (3) a high-level overview of current best practices for digital preservation, based on the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model.