Mission
SPN is a coordinated, distributed effort to
ensure long term access to software through community engagement, infrastructure support and knowledge generation.
SPN was formed in 2016 during the Software Preservation Network Forum in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. SPN believes that software should be curated and preserved because it is both: a dependency to access existing digital data and because it has intrinsic cultural value due to its mediating role in our lives. Software is critical information infrastructure.
Network participation includes colleagues from design firms, public libraries, history of computing museums, research data archives, university libraries and the open source software community. Individual participants range in role and perspective, including legal scholar-practitioners, digital preservation specialists, metadata specialists, data curators, digital conservators, knowledge managers, archivists, software developers and data journalists.
Values
Community
SPN connects and engages the diverse communities of information and communication technology, cultural heritage preservation, law, public policy, social science, natural science, arts, and humanities organizations that create, use and curate software.
Sustainability
SPN encourages the software development and research communities to build tools; develop methodologies; create robust documentation; and adhere to practices for software that facilitate long-term access.
Access
SPN enables long-term access to software and software-dependent cultural heritage through standards development, documentation, software development, and training.
Transparency
SPN is dedicated to earning the trust of our broad community through open documentation, open processes, and open standards.
Advocacy
SPN raises awareness for the essential role of software preservation in effective digital stewardship through the combined efforts of collecting organizations, academic researchers, legal experts, software developers & vendors, archivists, media archaeologists & information technology professionals.
Theory of Action: Collective Impact
Common
Agenda
SPN connects and engages the diverse communities of information and communication technology, cultural heritage preservation, law, public policy, social science, natural science, arts, and humanities organizations that create, use and curate software.
Shared Measurement
Helps each stakeholder group to determine what specific, incremental steps it may take towards the collective agenda. SPN currently has strategic goals for 2018 - 2020 which allow members to measure progress towards the collective agenda.
Reinforcing Activities
Stakeholder-specific work (the work of a single organization or grouping of organizations within SPN) must be coordinated so that each group’s work bears an explicit, reciprocal relationship with the work of the whole collective.
Constant Communication
Constant communication is necessary to demonstrate a commitment to fairness and evidence-based decision making overtime. SPN uses internal meetings, community events and the STACKTRACE Newsletter to exchange information.
Backbone Organization
SPN has undertaken the coordination and management of the day-to-day facilitation work, including stakeholder engagement, communications, and data collection and analysis. Paid support roles will exist moving forward to facilitate greater impact and accountability.
Join Us!
As SPN transitions from an exclusively grant-funded and in-kind support model to a self-sustaining member-driven organization, we hope you will consider joining our growing community of practice. You can learn more about SPN’s accomplishments, and our plans for the future, in our Software Preservation Network Prospectus.