Digital Directions

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS: Foundations for Digital Collections

**November 18-20, 2025 (Tuesday-Thursday) * Online**

Join us for a comprehensive overview of digital preservation, presented by information professionals with deep experience in the preservation of cultural heritage materials. During three half-days of live, interactive, online training, you will learn foundational concepts, good practices, and practical strategies for managing digital collections, and you’ll gain confidence in decision-making for the preservation of your digital assets.

Topics include:

key concepts and terminology in digital preservation
building a digital project
metadata
copyright
digital preservation tools
special considerations for audiovisual and born-digital materials
digital storage

The program will introduce you to free resources and tools you can use for digital preservation, and you’ll have the opportunity to connect via small group discussions with faculty members and with peers who face similar challenges. Participants will develop a clearer understanding of the next steps they should take to strengthen their organization’s digital preservation program.

What to Expect

The number of registrants for Digital Directions is limited to 125 to ensure that each participant has opportunities to interact with faculty and attendees.
Each livestreamed presentation is 45-60 minutes and is followed by 15-30 minutes of audio/video-enabled Q&A with the presenter.
Registrants will have access to all presentation sessions during the conference as well as on-demand access to recordings of the sessions for three months afterward.
See the Logistics page for more information about conference access.

Who Should Attend?

Are you just getting started in digitization and digital preservation? Trying to bring several digital projects together into a cohesive digital preservation program? Or are you well into a digital collections project and need a refresher on the latest standards and best practices? 

Digital Directions is geared toward professionals and volunteers working with digital collections at small- to mid-sized archives, libraries, museums, historical organizations, government agencies, corporate archives, and other organizations that steward digital collections. Students are also welcome, and a discounted student registration rate is available.

Participant Comments from the April 2025 Digital Directions:

“This conference was the best professional development I've ever had. I can now see not only how to carry out small-scale digital preservation projects but how to design these projects and how to integrate them with our other services. It has been an enormous boost to our institutional knowledge, and I am eager to share all this with my colleagues. Thank you so much!”
“We are just starting out in developing a digital archive. This conference was really helpful in laying the groundwork we need to do with really practical advice.”
“I really appreciated the focus on the bigger picture. It wasn't just about practical steps and learning about flashy tools, but everything was really rooted in policy, planning, and ethics.”
“This conference has given us the knowledge to responsibly determine how to move forward … with a goal of preserving [photographs] digitally and making them available, … how to work digital preservation and access into our mission, and how to think about other opportunities for digital preservation and access presented by our collections and community.”
“I recently completed my MMLIS but was delayed seeking work in the field. These 3 days have renewed my energy for these topics, which led me to get my Master's 3 years ago. This program provides a crash course in the practical application of best practices in the field, led by experienced speakers.”
“Seriously one of the best professional workshops I've been to.”

TO LEARN MORE about the Digital Directions program, view the Agenda.

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