I’m thrilled to share that the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded MCLS a grant for $242,351 for our project Demonstrating and Documenting a Statewide LOCKSS 2.0 Preservation Network for Cultural Memory Institutions, marking MCLS’s first-ever IMLS grant award as an organization. We will use these grant funds to continue building the Michigan Digital Preservation Network (MDPN) over a two year period from August 2022 to July 2024. The grant will help us create what we anticipate will be the first production LOCKSS 2.0 network for a variety of cultural memory organizations across the state of Michigan. Inclusion has been an important emphasis for MDPN since it began, and part of our project’s goal is to reduce barriers to participation in digital preservation work for smaller and under-resourced institutions including archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums. We will implement, document, and disseminate information about MDPN’s LOCKSS 2.0 network to a broad national audience with the intention of building capacity for more statewide and regional networks across the country, building on work by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA), Academic Preservation Trust (APTrust, which created DART), the Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) community, and many others.

This project also builds on efforts begun by many in Michigan over the past several years. Grand Valley State University (GVSU) started the ball rolling with the IMLS-funded Statewide & Regional Stepping Stones to the National Digital Platform grant in 2019, which galvanized a community willing to support digital preservation in Michigan. Together, GVSU, the Library of Michigan, MCLS, Michigan State University (MSU), and Western Michigan University (WMU) created the MDPN. MCLS hired Dr. Chelsea Denault as MDPN Coordinator in 2020 and she set about building the Network’s member-centered working groups and launching the MDPN Member Summit meetings in 2021. Our grant proposal also benefited greatly from the LOCKSS 2.0-alpha pilot project that WMU spearheaded with others including Capital Area District Library, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Rapids Public Library, and Oakland University. Along the way, Northern Michigan University (NMU) secured another grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC, part of the National Archives) for the Upper Peninsula Digital Network (UPLINK). Part of our project’s goal is to align with efforts such as UPLINK, and we hope to place a LOCKSS 2.0 node in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Please stay tuned for much more information in the coming weeks and months about this exciting project. In the meantime, in addition to thanking IMLS for their support, I’d like to recognize some of the people who have been especially engaged in efforts to build the MDPN, and who have helped us get to this point: Heidi Butler (CADL), Jeffrey Daniels (GVSU), Alex Dark and Paul Gallagher (WMU), Thib Guicherd-Callin (LOCKSS), Lindsay Hiltunen (Michigan Technological University), Ranti Junus (MSU), Marcus Robyns (NMU), Matt Schultz, and Shannon White (Library of Michigan). Thanks also to Rick Adler with the Michigan Service Hub of the DPLA and Biz Gallo at the Library of Michigan for helping us build a “three-legged stool” for digital collections in Michigan from digitization to access and preservation.

Finally, this grant award would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of MDPN Coordinator Chelsea Denault, with support from others at MCLS and in the MDPN community. To learn more, contact us at chelsea@mcls.org or scott@mcls.org.