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NDSR DC 2017: Blending Collaboriations and Bridging Gaps

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Symposium featured speakers (l to r): Jessica Meyerson, T-Kay Sangwand, Matt Zumwalt, and Megan Potterbush (moderator).
On August 17, 2017, the World Bank Group hosted the National Digital Stewardship Residents of DC (NDSR DC) for their annual symposium, Blending Collaborations and Bridging Gaps: Digital Preservation Communities of Practice. The event consisted of speakers, a roundtable discussion, and a series of lighting talks that gave residents in the NDSR program an opportunity to describe the work they had done in the previous year.

The symposium emphasized community-supported efforts that have allowed for project-based or grant-funded digital stewardship activities to transition into long-term, sustainable services. Much like NDSR is funded in order to create a community of practice for digital preservation, the symposium highlighted work being done by both local and distributed communities to support preservation and access to electronic resources. This program is centered around ways these communities leverage both local and international connections to build more robust relationships and greater interoperability between their services.

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Meredith Broadway, 2016-17 NDSR resident at the World Bank Group.
Through talks, panels, and interactive break-out sessions, NDSR DC forged connections between attendees in order to strengthen these efforts and to highlight successful collaboration initiatives, strategies, and tools. The program highlighted both US-based and international communities that have seen tangible successes in forming partnerships and shared services. Additionally, the approach of local community-based digital preservation demonstrate an alternative community model that could inform a more ethical means of digital stewardship and equitable knowledge sharing of how to implement these tasks.