Dear Colleagues,
We are writing to update you with current developments for UNESCO PERSIST, and to draw your attention to the PERSIST Community Guidelines, which will make it much easier for our wider community to be involved and contribute to the activities and events for PERSIST over the next 12-18 months.
If you visit the UNESCOPERSIST website, you’ll see new posts reporting the activities of our working groups, including new translations of the PERSIST Selection Guidelines and an exciting new partnership with the Digital Preservation Coalition.
 
Importantly, we would appreciate your feedback on the Community Guidelines.  The Guidelines, once adopted, will enable us to more formally establish expert groups, advisory bodies and partnerships with like-minded organisations.  It will also give us a more open and effective mechanism to convene workshops, symposia and other events that can involve the broader community engaged in the preservation and ongoing access to our digital heritage.
And of course it means we can properly recognise and acknowledge the affiliation of all these activities with UNESCO, including use of logos etc. 
Please take the time to visit the website and provide your feedback.  We’d also be very interested to receive your ideas on activities to include in the PERSIST programme, around the themes of:
emerging and existing policies and strategies on digital preservation of documentary heritage by both Governments and Memory Institutions,
the technology life-cycle management of open source and commercial software, to ensure digital continuity of software and content, and
existing and emerging needs of digital preservation practitioners and how these can be best addressed at the local, national and international levels.
Of particular interest to members of the archival and information management communities will be the UNESCO/PERSIST Guidelines for the selection of digital heritage for long-term preservation, check link here: https://unescopersist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/persist-content-gui… . The aim of the guide is help heritage institutions when drafting policies on the identification and selection of information for long-term preservation.
Looking forward to hearing from you, through the website or at feedback@unescopersist.org
Sincerely,
David Fricker  – ICA President   Anthea  Seles – Secretary General