Waterford City and County Council joins DRI

Waterford City and County Council is the authority responsible for local government in the City and County of Waterford, Ireland. The organisation came into operation on 1st June 2014 after that year's local elections and is a merger of Waterford City Council and Waterford County Council. Their mission is to make Waterford the best possible place for all its people and for those that wish to live, visit, work, or invest there.

The collections that Waterford City and County Council intend to deposit in DRI comprise internal office records, photos, videos, drone footage, CCTV, maps, and GIS spatial data. Waterford City and County Council are interested in sharing their own experiences of managing large volumes of digital records and in learning more about digital preservation methodologies from the DRI and the wider digital preservation community.

Waterford City and County Council Archivist & Records Manager Joanne Rothwell expounds on the Council’s motivations for joining the DRI:

"Waterford City and County Council as a local authority is committed to improving the welfare of Waterford. The organisation operates with the values of democracy, inclusion, integrity, quality, transparency and accountability. Putting the people first Waterford City and County Council is committed to delivering a broad range of services efficiently and effectively. It is this commitment to continuous improvement that has led Waterford City and County Council to join the DRI. The DRI, with its dedication to preservation and strong commitment to access is the ideal organisation for Waterford City and County Council to work with in meeting our commitment to the preservation and access to our records for the people of Waterford. "

Joanne further states that:

"[A]s records are created in an increasingly digital environment, we believe it is important that we work to ensure we develop an environment that will preserve and make accessible our digital records both now and into the future. We look forward to learning from the standards and user guides developed to date by the DRI and to collaborating and contributing to future standards and projects. It is only through collaboration and sharing knowledge that we can ensure that our digital heritage is preserved and accessible to the public. The DRI through its training, standards and its digital repository is an important resource that will help us to meet our commitment to transparent, accountable recordkeeping for the benefit of the people of Waterford."

DRI Director Natalie Harrower welcomed our latest member:

"We are pleased to welcome Waterford City and County Council, and the rich heritage materials they steward and conserve, to the growing Digital Repository of Ireland membership. In addition to helping to preserve and widely disseminate their substantial and varied digital collections, we also look forward to ongoing collaborations with Joanne Rothwell and her colleagues. We have organised events with Waterford in the past, including a fascinating day long symposium in 2018 on the future of digital records in local authority services. This new formal relationship will enable us to work even more closely together, and learn from one another’s areas of expertise."

DRI looks forward to sharing content from the Waterford City and County Council collections over the coming months, so keep an eye on our Twitter feed!