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Digital Readiness Community of Practice

The Digital Readiness Community of Practice aims to build local history practitioners’ capacity to create, manage and share digitized historical resources in small and under-resourced repositories. WiLS, Recollection Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Historical Society have partnered on this community-driven initiative to build digital readiness since 2019, and continue to collaborate to make digitization resources and knowledge widely and freely accessible to local history staff and volunteers.  From 2019-2021, this work was supported by planning and implementation grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the granting arm of the National Archives. For more information or to get involved, please visit the Digital Readiness Community of Practice site.

"Clear and concise. It seems like [the Digital Readiness Levels] could be used as a universal document for organizations of all sizes and budgets."
Community of Practice member

Project Outcomes

  • The Digital Readiness Toolkit, released in June 2022, is a complete guide to creating and tending a digital collection for organizations of any size and experience level
  • Expansion of the Digital Readiness Toolkit’s Audiovisual resources, in collaboration with the Assessing and Addressing Digital Readiness in Audiovisual Collections initiative of the Community Archiving Workshop
  • The Digital Readiness Levels, a roadmap for local history organizations and practitioners to plan and implement digitization projects regardless of their level of expertise or stage of work
  • Four virtual Digital Readiness Fairs to build community and introduce participants to digital projects, experts and practitioners
  • A Digital Readiness glossary to demystify commonly used terminology
  • Case studies that showcase Wisconsin local history organizations and their digital projects including best practices, lessons learned, and other useful tools and resources
  • The Wisconsin Digital Stewardship listserv

Presentations and Publications

“Journeys Through Community Engagement,” ODNFest, October 2023

“Building a Community-Driven Digital Readiness Toolkit,” Midwest Archives Conference Newsletter, October 2022

Digital Readiness Levels and Toolkit Training Video, September 2022

“Digital Readiness for Wisconsin’s Local History Community,” Archival Outlook (Society of American Archivists), January/February 2022

Cultivating a Statewide Digital Readiness Community of Practice, National Digital Stewardship Alliance 2021

"I like the succinct, concrete nature of [the Digital Readiness Levels]. I think it will be useful for small organizations, especially for newer, less experienced digital collection staff. "
Community of Practice member