Thank you for your interest in attending a Digital POWRR Institute! Applications are now being accepted for our second 2.5 day institute, which will be held in January 2024 in Tucson, Arizona. Please apply here!
Further details on future events, such as exact dates and locations, will be added to this page as the events are formally scheduled.
The initial “POWRR Professional Development Institutes for Digital Preservation” grant (2017-2019) enabled project staff to organize and hold five two-day professional institutes which enabled librarians and archivists from small and mid-sized institutions to build skills for curating and preserving digital collections. A new round of generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, will allow POWRR the ability to put on 5 more institutes in 2023-2025. The new institutes have been retooled in response to past attendee feedback and evaluations, and as a result, are now 2.5 days long rather than 2. As was the case with the original institutes, the new events will incorporate hands-on technical training, engagement with institutional case studies, and one-on-one consultations with practitioners drawn from the digital preservation field. Attendees will be assigned to a small cohort with a cohort facilitator who they will work closely with throughout their time at the event, Attendees will depart the institutes with a personalized and actionable preservation plan that will enable them to take action upon returning to their institutions. We will once again choose participants through an application process to select 30 attendees for each institute, resulting in a total of 150 individuals between the five events. The events will be offered free of charge, with travel scholarships offered to those demonstrating financial need. (Please note: due to U.S. federal grant regulations, we are unable to provide scholarship funds to international applicants.)
An ideal candidate for a POWRR institute may be someone who fits some of these descriptions:
- Someone who works directly with collections, including digital materials
- Someone who has been exposed to basic digital preservation concepts, but who has struggled with moving from theory to practice
- Someone who represents or serves historically underrepresented populations
- Someone who is comfortable with basic technology, (navigating a basic computing environment) but who would benefit from instruction on more intermediate concepts
- Someone employed by an institution unable to provide professional development funding adequate to attend other digital preservation training opportunities
- Someone who would benefit from being a part of a small cohort of professionals like themselves, and who will put forth effort into sustaining these professional connections after the end of the Institute
Curious about the content covered at a POWRR Institute? The agenda and session descriptions for Institute #1 are available, as are the other materials used at the event. Please be aware that we tweak our curriculum/sessions between events based on instructor availability and feedback received from participants. Institute #2 will likely contain some changes!
Calendar of Institutes
| Institute | Location | Application Goes Live | Application Deadline | Institute Dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Institute One | Naperville, IL – NIU Naperville Conference Center (map) | April 25, 2023 | May 19, 2023 | July 24-26, 2023 |
| Institute Two | Tucson, AZ (University of Arizona Library) | August 8, 2023 | September 5, 2023 | January 3-5, 2024 |
| Institute Three | Stillwater, OK (Oklahoma State University) | June 5-7, 2024 | ||
| Institute Four | Honolulu, Hawai’i (University of Hawai’i at Mānoa) | late 2024 | ||
| Institute Five | Naperville, IL – NIU Naperville Conference Center | early 2025 |
Questions?
Reach out to digital.powrr.workshops at gmail.com or @digitalPOWRR on Twitter
*Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this institute, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
