Subject: Historical proposal for a shared digital preservation tool registry
Associated author: Paul Wheatley
Historical period: January 2013
Related initiative: Community-Owned digital Preservation Tool Registry (COPTR)
Former DCE file path: https://digitalcurationexchange.org/system/files/wheatley-tools-registry_0.pdf
This page is a historical source record, not a claim to reproduce the exact PDF formerly hosted by the Digital Curation Exchange. The original file's bytes and redistribution rights have not been verified for this publication.
Why another tool list was not the answer
In the early 2010s, digital preservation communities had built many separate lists of software and related services. Although useful in isolation, such lists were difficult to compare and maintain. Practitioners could spend considerable time discovering the same tools across projects without an obvious way to contribute improvements to a shared resource.
Paul Wheatley described this problem in a 30 January 2013 Open Preservation Foundation article. The post explains that he presented a proposal for a community-owned registry at a workshop connected with the Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation initiative and describes the early effort to gather community support.
A follow-up published in May 2013 sought feedback and contributions. Those contemporary accounts provide reliable evidence of the proposal's purpose and development even when the former DCE-hosted PDF is not available.
What changed with COPTR?
Rather than creating another isolated institutional list, the emerging model encouraged a shared registry that people working in preservation could help maintain. COPTR now serves as a community-maintained discovery point for preservation tools and workflows. Its about page explains its scope and origins.
The practical lesson extends beyond preservation software. Shared technical knowledge is most useful when readers can identify who maintains it, when it was reviewed and how to correct it. A static page may capture a useful historical moment but it should not imply that every listed tool remains safe, maintained or suitable today.
How to find the material
- Original contemporary account: Creating a Community-Owned Digital Preservation Tool Registry
- Original contemporary follow-up: Feedback Requested on a Collaborative Digital Preservation Tool Registry
- Present-day COPTR registry
- TwoSquares guide to choosing digital preservation tools
If the authentic wheatley-tools-registry_0.pdf is recovered, verify its author, date, contents and licence before treating it as a published file or attaching an exact download link to this record.
Related: Research library | International alignment workshop