What did you do before working in Digital Preservation?
I was mostly trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life! The career advice available in the small, rural Scottish town where I went to high school wasn’t exactly tailored for someone of a nerdy, academic persuasion, so there was a lot of finding my own way. My undergrad was a joint honours MA in Art History and Film and TV Studies, which was aligned with my interests but didn’t exactly set me on a path for specific career. I then temped for a year doing data entry and emergency engineering assignments for the company that managed Scotland’s gas infrastructure, before returning to the University of Glasgow to complete an MSc in Information Technology. I started working at the university library during the MSc, and when the IT job market wasn’t buoyant when I graduated in 2003, I became a fulltime library assistant and book processor. A year later the university launched a new archives and records management master’s programme, which piqued my interest, and I joined the course part-time in its second year.
How did you get started in Digital Preservation?
I like to joke that I was the first person to pursue an archives master’s with the plan to work specifically with digital records. I’ve no idea if that is actually true, but it certainly felt like it at the time. Everyone I met early in my career had moved into digital preservation from something else, be it working with analogue records, computer science/IT, or, it seemed most often, archaeology. I swear that 50% of the people in digital preservation in the UK in the mid-2000s seemed to have come from an archaeology background! My gateway was a “Cultural and Heritage Computing” course I’d taken as part of my IT MSc, where we’d spent a few classes at Glasgow University Archives, and had looked at the burgeoning world of digital preservation. I think we also briefly discussed OAIS, and somehow even that didn’t put me off… My first job was then as Digital Archivist at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS, now part of Historic Environment Scotland), which I started while still completing my archives master’s.
Who influenced your early career?
The first person I should mention is Seamus Ross, who was my lecturer and dissertation supervisor on both my IT and archives MSc courses. It was Seamus’s classes that introduced me to digital preservation, and he provided me with a lot of encouragement at a time when my self-confidence was almost non-existent. Next would be Kirsty Lingstadt, then my boss at RCAHMS, and now Director of Library, Learning, Archives and Wellbeing at the University of York. I would not be where I am now without Kirsty’s support and guidance. She was willing to listen to and learn from a new professional in a way that many managers won’t and gave me latitude to shake things up with RCAHMS’s digital preservation plans. I’ll also quickly mention the team at the Archaeology Data Service, who we learned a lot from at RCAHMS, and Susan Corrigall of the National Records of Scotland. Susan was the first person I met at a professional event and was so kind and welcoming to a very nervous young archivist. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with her on a number of occasions since.
What work have you been most proud of?
There are two problems with answering this question: 1) it feels like bragging, which is a very un-Scottish thing to do and 2) it’s also like picking your favourite child, but I shall give it a go nonetheless… I’ve been lucky and had the chance to work on lots of interesting and impactful projects in my career, but I think the two that stand out the most are the Novice to Know-How (N2KH) training courses and the Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Digital Preservation Community Survey. When I started work on N2KH I had no idea how popular it would be nor that the program would grow and evolve in the way it did. It still blows my mind that the original beginner’s course has now been completed by more than 4000 learners in over 60 countries. I will forever be grateful to The National Archives, UK’s Archives Sector Development team for conceiving of the courses and giving me the opportunity to lead their development.
As an autistic woman who has had her own struggles at times, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey is perhaps the most personally important thing that I’ve worked on. I don’t think there was anything in the report that was surprising but having the chance to properly document the issues our profession faces felt like a positive step forward. It also links to one of the things outside of work that I’m most proud of, being a trustee of the charity SWAN Autism (Scotland). SWAN provides much needed support to autistic women and non-binary people in Scotland, and the staff, volunteers, and other trustees are some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.
What’s the most common piece of DP advice you find yourself giving?
To quote both Douglas Adams and Nike (an unlikely combo…), “Don’t Panic!” and “Just Do It”. Doing anything in digital preservation is better than doing nothing. Start with something small and manageable, testing a tool, running fixity checks, keeping more than one copy, and develop from there. Indeed, building capabilities and capacity over time using a continuous improvement approach is better than trying to do everything at once. It’s why I’m such a big fan of using maturity models to help guide digital preservation work. It also links back to N2KH as the most gratifying feedback received for the course was from people who said they’d been scared of digital preservation before but now felt confident to take their first steps. That’s about the best feedback you can get for training!
How has DP changed over the time you’ve been in the field?
It has changed in so many ways in the 19 years since I started, there are far more resources and guidance, more tools and solutions, and lots more wonderful people! I think community is (and should be) at the heart of digital preservation, as we make more progress together than working alone, and it’s a core part of the ethos of Preserve Together. It’s been a privilege to participate in community growth over the years, and it’s been great to see more women and people of other genders enter the field, as it was very male dominated when I started. Diversity is one area where we need to do more work though. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also brings the benefits of new viewpoints and greater innovation, things that are essential for a developing field.
What trends do you think are going to be important in DP in the near future?
Paul already mentioned AI in his interview, so I’m going to judiciously sidestep that one. I think one trend we’ll see is organizations taking a “back to basics” approach to their digital preservation work. We’ve seen many “all singing, all dancing” attempts at digital preservation flounder as they turn out to be “too much, too soon”. As organizations move through cycles of development, I can see the desire to go back to fundamentals. Figuring out what we need to do first and building towards what we’d like to do later.
This is your first foray into consultancy, how are you finding it?
It’s definitely been quite a mental shift after 14 years with the DPC, but I can’t say I hate being my own boss! It’s also great having a partner I respect and trust as much as Paul. We’ve got really complementary skills and approaches, and we’re already seeing the benefits that brings. As I’ve already mentioned, I also love the digital preservation community, getting out there and sharing experiences, and lending a hand where I can, from being on the iPRES program committee, through working on the NDSA Staffing Survey, to now having new opportunities with consultancy work. And there’s still plenty of chances to use my workforce development knowledge too and I’m excited to share more on that soon.
What’s your favourite escape from DP?
The first answer has to be my pets: Pretzel and Finbar, my doggos, and Ted, my tortoise. Ted is definitely the good one of the group, Pretzel is becoming the grumpy old man, while Finbar is the naughty scamp. He’s just 9 months old, and last night I found him with a VGA cable he’d happily chewed through. Other than that I have an out of control Lego collection (if you’re on a video call with me you can play spot the model in the background, I like to swap them out every now and then), I enjoy spending time with my niece and nephew, I love jigsaws and puzzle games, and am an avid TV and film fan. I just finished Andor season 2 which was brilliant but brutal on the emotions, not least because of the parallels with what’s happening with the world right now. I’ve also been going through a “police procedurals with a twist” phase and have binged Psych, High Potential, and Will Trent.
I was mostly trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life! The career advice available in the small, rural Scottish town where I went to high school wasn’t exactly tailored for someone of a nerdy, academic persuasion, so there was a lot of finding my own way. My undergrad was a joint honours MA in Art History and Film and TV Studies, which was aligned with my interests but didn’t exactly set me on a path for specific career. I then temped for a year doing data entry and emergency engineering assignments for the company that managed Scotland’s gas infrastructure, before returning to the University of Glasgow to complete an MSc in Information Technology. I started working at the university library during the MSc, and when the IT job market wasn’t buoyant when I graduated in 2003, I became a fulltime library assistant and book processor. A year later the university launched a new archives and records management master’s programme, which piqued my interest, and I joined the course part-time in its second year.
How did you get started in Digital Preservation?
I like to joke that I was the first person to pursue an archives master’s with the plan to work specifically with digital records. I’ve no idea if that is actually true, but it certainly felt like it at the time. Everyone I met early in my career had moved into digital preservation from something else, be it working with analogue records, computer science/IT, or, it seemed most often, archaeology. I swear that 50% of the people in digital preservation in the UK in the mid-2000s seemed to have come from an archaeology background! My gateway was a “Cultural and Heritage Computing” course I’d taken as part of my IT MSc, where we’d spent a few classes at Glasgow University Archives, and had looked at the burgeoning world of digital preservation. I think we also briefly discussed OAIS, and somehow even that didn’t put me off… My first job was then as Digital Archivist at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS, now part of Historic Environment Scotland), which I started while still completing my archives master’s.
Who influenced your early career?
The first person I should mention is Seamus Ross, who was my lecturer and dissertation supervisor on both my IT and archives MSc courses. It was Seamus’s classes that introduced me to digital preservation, and he provided me with a lot of encouragement at a time when my self-confidence was almost non-existent. Next would be Kirsty Lingstadt, then my boss at RCAHMS, and now Director of Library, Learning, Archives and Wellbeing at the University of York. I would not be where I am now without Kirsty’s support and guidance. She was willing to listen to and learn from a new professional in a way that many managers won’t and gave me latitude to shake things up with RCAHMS’s digital preservation plans. I’ll also quickly mention the team at the Archaeology Data Service, who we learned a lot from at RCAHMS, and Susan Corrigall of the National Records of Scotland. Susan was the first person I met at a professional event and was so kind and welcoming to a very nervous young archivist. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with her on a number of occasions since.
What work have you been most proud of?
There are two problems with answering this question: 1) it feels like bragging, which is a very un-Scottish thing to do and 2) it’s also like picking your favourite child, but I shall give it a go nonetheless… I’ve been lucky and had the chance to work on lots of interesting and impactful projects in my career, but I think the two that stand out the most are the Novice to Know-How (N2KH) training courses and the Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Digital Preservation Community Survey. When I started work on N2KH I had no idea how popular it would be nor that the program would grow and evolve in the way it did. It still blows my mind that the original beginner’s course has now been completed by more than 4000 learners in over 60 countries. I will forever be grateful to The National Archives, UK’s Archives Sector Development team for conceiving of the courses and giving me the opportunity to lead their development.
As an autistic woman who has had her own struggles at times, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey is perhaps the most personally important thing that I’ve worked on. I don’t think there was anything in the report that was surprising but having the chance to properly document the issues our profession faces felt like a positive step forward. It also links to one of the things outside of work that I’m most proud of, being a trustee of the charity SWAN Autism (Scotland). SWAN provides much needed support to autistic women and non-binary people in Scotland, and the staff, volunteers, and other trustees are some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.
What’s the most common piece of DP advice you find yourself giving?
To quote both Douglas Adams and Nike (an unlikely combo…), “Don’t Panic!” and “Just Do It”. Doing anything in digital preservation is better than doing nothing. Start with something small and manageable, testing a tool, running fixity checks, keeping more than one copy, and develop from there. Indeed, building capabilities and capacity over time using a continuous improvement approach is better than trying to do everything at once. It’s why I’m such a big fan of using maturity models to help guide digital preservation work. It also links back to N2KH as the most gratifying feedback received for the course was from people who said they’d been scared of digital preservation before but now felt confident to take their first steps. That’s about the best feedback you can get for training!
How has DP changed over the time you’ve been in the field?
It has changed in so many ways in the 19 years since I started, there are far more resources and guidance, more tools and solutions, and lots more wonderful people! I think community is (and should be) at the heart of digital preservation, as we make more progress together than working alone, and it’s a core part of the ethos of Preserve Together. It’s been a privilege to participate in community growth over the years, and it’s been great to see more women and people of other genders enter the field, as it was very male dominated when I started. Diversity is one area where we need to do more work though. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also brings the benefits of new viewpoints and greater innovation, things that are essential for a developing field.
What trends do you think are going to be important in DP in the near future?
Paul already mentioned AI in his interview, so I’m going to judiciously sidestep that one. I think one trend we’ll see is organizations taking a “back to basics” approach to their digital preservation work. We’ve seen many “all singing, all dancing” attempts at digital preservation flounder as they turn out to be “too much, too soon”. As organizations move through cycles of development, I can see the desire to go back to fundamentals. Figuring out what we need to do first and building towards what we’d like to do later.
This is your first foray into consultancy, how are you finding it?
It’s definitely been quite a mental shift after 14 years with the DPC, but I can’t say I hate being my own boss! It’s also great having a partner I respect and trust as much as Paul. We’ve got really complementary skills and approaches, and we’re already seeing the benefits that brings. As I’ve already mentioned, I also love the digital preservation community, getting out there and sharing experiences, and lending a hand where I can, from being on the iPRES program committee, through working on the NDSA Staffing Survey, to now having new opportunities with consultancy work. And there’s still plenty of chances to use my workforce development knowledge too and I’m excited to share more on that soon.
What’s your favourite escape from DP?
The first answer has to be my pets: Pretzel and Finbar, my doggos, and Ted, my tortoise. Ted is definitely the good one of the group, Pretzel is becoming the grumpy old man, while Finbar is the naughty scamp. He’s just 9 months old, and last night I found him with a VGA cable he’d happily chewed through. Other than that I have an out of control Lego collection (if you’re on a video call with me you can play spot the model in the background, I like to swap them out every now and then), I enjoy spending time with my niece and nephew, I love jigsaws and puzzle games, and am an avid TV and film fan. I just finished Andor season 2 which was brilliant but brutal on the emotions, not least because of the parallels with what’s happening with the world right now. I’ve also been going through a “police procedurals with a twist” phase and have binged Psych, High Potential, and Will Trent.