The Michigan Digital Preservation Network (MDPN) is a statewide initiative that offers affordable and easy-to-use digital preservation services to cultural memory organizations of all types and sizes. Digital preservation helps keep digital content safe, accessible, and usable for the long-term future in spite of risks like technical failure or organizational change, and is an important part of good digital collections stewardship. Digital preservation is like an insurance policy that protects an organization's investment in building and maintaining their digital collections.

As part of its implementation grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the MDPN is providing free or subsidized digital preservation storage in its LOCKSS network for digital collections that could be considered at-risk or pertaining to underrepresented groups/communities. "At-risk" can be considered those that are impacted by technical obsolescence*, environmental threats, financial insolvency, or organizational failure. "Underrepresented" can include collections containing subjects that have been historically marginalized in the content collected and preserved by cultural memory institutions (i.e. archives, museums, etc.) and in society, more broadly. In addition to free or subsidized digital preservation storage for selected collections, awardees will receive free one-on-one training on how to use the MDPN's preservation service. 

Participation in this grant and deposit of collections into the MDPN preservation network does not transfer ownership of collections to MDPN. Participating institutions will retain ownership of their collections. The MDPN preservation network is a dark archive that does not provide public access to collections and does not serve as an institutional repository for your organization. For questions about the grant, please contact MDPN Coordinator Dr. Chelsea Denault (denaultc@mcls.org).

*For an example of content that has been deemed by the digital preservation community to be critically at-risk, please see the 2023 Digital Preservation Coalition's "Bit List." Proposed collections are not required to be included in the Bit List. MDPN provides the Bit List as a helpful example of content types that are recognized by the digital preservation field as being at-risk.