Assessing Your Program
Kenney, A.R & McGovern, N.Y. (2003). "The Five organizational stages of digital preservation." From Digital Libraries: A Vision for the 21st Century: A Festschrift in Honor of Wendy Lougee on the Occasion of her Departure from the University of Michigan.
Though it's now over a decade old, Anne Kenney and Nancy McGovern's "The Five Organizational Stages of Digital Preservation" remains required reading for those looking to build and develop their digital preservation programs for its holistic approach to thinking about organizational change.
Peltzman, S. (2016, April 12). "Expanding NSDA levels of preservation." The Signal.
http://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2016/04/expanding-ndsa-levels-of-preservation/
The NSDA levels of preservation are a useful and simple way of assessing your preservation program, new tools and services, and create a roadmap for the future. This blog post includes discussion on the expansion of the original NSDA matrix in addition to the matrix itself.
Files and File Formats
Byrne, A. (2016, September 8). "Making the Switch from User to User AND contributor: My First File Format Signature." Open Preservation Foundation.
Mitcham, J. (2016, August 19). "My first file format signature." Digital Archiving at the University of York.
A highly readable set of posts on looking under the hood at files and how they are identified.
Lyons, B. (2016, February 18). "What is the chemistry of digital preservation?" AVPreserve.
https://www.avpreserve.com/blog/what-is-the-chemistry-of-digital-preservation/
A great primer on understanding the basics of the digital file.
Metadata
Caplan, P. Understanding PREMIS. Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/understanding-premis.pdf
Essential reading for an introduction to the PREMIS preservation metadata standard.
Riley, J. Understanding Metadata: What is Metadata and What is it For? NISO Primer.
http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/17446/understanding%20metadata
A great introduction to the general subject of metadata.
Understanding OAIS
Lavoie, B. (2014). The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model: Introductory Guide (2nd Edition). Digital Preservation Coalition Technology Watch Report.
http://www.dpconline.org/docman/technology-watch-reports/1359-dpctw14-02/file
An eminently readable guide to understanding the Open Archival Information System Standard.
Blogroll:
University of York Archivist Jenny Mitcham's excellent blog on digital archives work