APTrust Happy New Year Update

[Bradley Daigle]

Dear Members of the APTrust community,

Happy New Year! I would like to take this opportunity to do a quick recap of what we have accomplished over the last several months and a peek at what is coming down the road.

You all have been doing some excellent work! Here are just some of the highlights that we can celebrate:

• We had a smooth Board transition and new chair
• We also welcomed Sarah Shreeves as our newest Board Member
• We nearly 50 people at our first in-person meeting since 2019
• APTrust’s financial position remains strong, having almost 2 years in operating costs
• Member deposits are significantly higher and on the rise
• Ongoing costs are stable despite increased use (this will likely change in the future)
• Member engagement remains strong with a new group formed to identify the specific needs of APTrust and archivists
• We added two new sustaining members
• APTrust staff released a new version of our preservation software with no down time to depositors
• We also updated and did a complete refresh of our website
• Jill Sexton and I presented at CNI about data loss and organizational change
• Associate membership MOUs are being finalized by several members thanks to the work of Team Social Impact

APTrust continues with its strong financial foundation. With that base, we are able to reinvest heavily in our infrastructure. Last year, we contracted with outside services to provide a clean, professional UI to our member interface. We also used a local business here in Charlottesville to redo our website. Then we did an accessibility overhaul for both. We also provided travel funds this year for our Member Meeting in recognition of the financial challenges we all face during these economic times and to reduce the barrier for attendance and participation since he hadn’t met in years. We will also take advantage of that financial base to experiment with new models such as Wasabi at no additional cost to our members.

Looking to 2023

• As mentioned in our December Advisory Call, we have initiated our Wasabi pilot in order to ascertain the full cost of adding another storage option for our consortium. We will be updating you all on that work going forward.
• Once Wasabi has been thoroughly tested, we can begin investigating other preservation options
• Multiple members are finalizing their Associate Member framework. I hope to see some new additions to that tier in 2023 and explore that potential
• Andrew is rewriting his DART tool to make it more sustainable and extensible for depositors and users beyond APTrust
• APTrust is participating in an IMLS planning grant that seeks to investigate shared models of distributed digital preservation services
• APTrust Members will be starting up a new series entitled “APTrust Success Stories” where we highlight successful strategies our members have deployed in their digital preservation work. Boston College will tee us off with a discussion around A/V workflows.
• More policy updates and enhanced technical and advocacy documentation that heightens our ongoing commitment to transparency and knowledge sharing to the broader community

These are but a few of our planned outcomes for 2023. If there is something else you would like to see, please let me know. 

I cannot celebrate enough the work that Andrew and Flavia have done over the course of the last few years. Both have worked hard to release an entirely updated, streamlined, and modernized infrastructure. Andrew has rewritten all of our code from scratch and Flavia has doubled down on the security elements of our environment as well as simplifying and automating its ongoing management. Their work has saved APTrust and its members tens of thousands of dollars. These efforts position us strongly for a future of sustainable growth. It is unusual for a consortium like ours to update its infrastructure so quickly since its successful production launch but we saw the opportunity to take advantage of new thinking and solutions. In addition, to undertake this work and then execute it with no unscheduled downtime is almost unheard of.

They are amazing.

Finally, I am thankful for all you do. Together we continue to grow and expand our shared knowledge of digital preservation. We teach, we learn, we adapt. That is thanks to the work and commitment of each and everyone one working in the APTrust community.

Here is to wishing everyone a prosperous and rewarding new year!

Best,

Bradley

Bradley Daigle

Executive Director
Academic Preservation Trust
bra...@aptrust.org