Many Community Archives already have significant holdings of digitised archives (scanned photographs, oral history recordings etc.) and expect to collect more in the future.  Although there is a huge quantity of research, standards, and training now available on the preservation of digital material, much of this is very detailed and designed for a professional or technical audience. The Community Archives and Heritage Group (http://www.communityarchives.org.uk) is putting together a suite of step-by-step guidelines on digital preservation, specifically tailored to the needs and resource capacity of Community Archive groups.

In order to make this guidance as useful as possible, we need to understand more about the types and quantities of digital materials held or generated by Community Archives.  We are also interested to find out about any steps you are already taking to preserve digital materials and to make them more widely available.

This project is being undertaken by Dr Andrew Flinn and Alexandra Eveleigh from the Department of Information Studies at University College London, within the framework provided by UCL's Research Ethics Committee.

By completing this questionnaire, you are agreeing to participate in this project and that your responses can be used for the research purposes of the project team.  You can complete the questionnaire anonymously if you wish.  If you do provide your name and email address so that we can contact you later in the project, this data will be stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1988.