Overview
The Technological Infrastructure Working Group plays a pivotal role in addressing the technological challenges facing software preservation. By understanding, comparing, and articulating the infrastructural implications of different software preservation and access approaches, this group creates practical, scalable infrastructure solutions that make software more accessible and maintainable.
In alignment with SPN’s mission, the group works to develop and support shared infrastructure that facilitates broad and practical access to preserved software, enabling collective impact across the software preservation community by:
- Evaluating available tools, platforms, and systems for software preservation, identifying current solutions and opportunities for improvement.
- Determining which existing tools are practically usable for software preservation and exploring ways to adapt and enhance them to meet community needs.
- Providing guidance to the community on best practices for defining, describing, and documenting software systems and their dependencies.
- Creating scalable infrastructure solutions that improve the accessibility, usability, and long-term maintenance of preserved software.
- Collaborating with members of the digital preservation ecosystem to experiment with existing tools and develop a community-driven roadmap for the future.
The Tech Infra Working Group drives collaborative, community-led efforts to advance tools and infrastructure for software preservation at scale: By developing a shared roadmap and improving key tools, the group ensures that solutions align with the real-world needs of preservationists. It also provides best practices and documentation to help the community effectively define, describe, and maintain software systems.
How You Might Engage
How You Might Engage with the Technological Infrastructure Working Group:
Contribute to Experimentation: Participate in evaluating and experimenting with existing tools and platforms used for software preservation and access.
Shape the Roadmap: Help develop and refine a community-driven development roadmap for infrastructure solutions in the software preservation ecosystem.
Collaborate Across the Ecosystem: Work with digital preservation professionals to share knowledge, tools, and solutions that improve infrastructure and accessibility for software preservation.
Provide Expertise: Bring your experience with software systems, technical challenges, or infrastructure development to help define best practices for the preservation community.
If you’re excited about improving the tools and infrastructure that enable scalable software preservation, we invite you to join the Technological Infrastructure Working Group.
Resources
Scaling Software Preservation and Emulation
This episode will explore current programmatic and project based initiatives to create the processes and infrastructure that will support a growing number of software (re)use cases/organizational users. Guests will highlight challenges and opportunities associated with scaling an institutional software preservation …Continue Scaling Software Preservation and Emulation
Resources, Webinars
Envisioning Local Services
This purpose of the Envisioning Local Services exercise is to help your organization consider the specifics of the local service environment and create a list of short, medium and long-term goals that will help to bring software preservation and emulation …Continue Envisioning Local Services
Resources, Templates
If you’re passionate about making software preservation more feasible and sustainable through legal and policy work, we encourage you to join the Tech Infrastructure Working Group and help shape the future of this critical area.