The National Digital Stewardship Alliance Standards (NDSA) and Practices Working Group have released “Staffing for Effective Digital Preservation: An NDSA Report,” a survey of 85 institutions with a mandate to preserve digital content. The questions focused on staffing and organization, and some of the key findings include:

• There is no dedicated digital preservation department in most organizations surveyed.
• Images and text files are the most common types of content being preserved.
• Most organizations are retraining existing staff to manage digital preservation functions rather than hiring new staff.
• For new hires, respondents believe that passion for digital preservation and a knowledge of digital preservation standards, best practices, and tools are the most important characteristics of a good digital preservation manager, not a particular educational background or past work experience.