Helena Watson

Tell us a bit about yourself…

I originally studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and went on to work in research and/or development in a variety of commercial organisations. I’ve had an extremely varied career, including, at various times, hardware design, algorithm engineering, cybersecurity, business systems, web design and virtual reality. I first encountered Linux in the early 1990’s while researching this new “Internet” thing for Mars Inc., subsequently working on a project to get the Snickers brand online (which can be found in the Internet Archive). I’ve been working in libraries since 2003 when I joined the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford in an R&D role. There, I have worked on open projects such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) for image sharing and annotation, the Oxford Common File Layout (OCFL) for the storage of versioned digital objects and the SWORD protocol for machine-to-machine transfer of packaged digital objects, among others. Outside the OPF, I still work at the University, dividing my time between library innovation activities and teaching in the Digital Humanities.

How did you get here? What was your path into digital preservation?

In a way, many of my roles included elements of what is now identified as digital preservation. In the early 90’s, I developed antivirus software for a chap called Dr Alan Solomon, who older IT people may remember. Another side of his business was data recovery, where I helped out occasionally, getting to grips with data extraction from damaged media and the file format analysis needed to reassemble fragmented or deleted files. That business expanded into digital forensics, which required much the same skillset. Later, at Mars, I worked on a corporate archive which had already been completely converted to marked-up and indexed text in the late 80’s, and started work on an image archive. Coming to the libraries and archives sector a decade later there appeared to be a gap not only in terms of skills and technology, but also standards. This is more-or-less what I have been working on ever since.

What drew you specifically to the OPF?

I’ve been around for a long while, so I knew several of the people involved with the PLANETS project and its predecessors. I may even have attended some meetings or workshops. I think open source is absolutely necessary for digital preservation for a number of reasons. Everyone should be able to independently preserve and control their digital records and culture, regardless of their resources. Memory organisations typically outlast the commercial organisations that provide their technology, but data integrity is always at increased risk during system migrations and transfers. Open software and standards can help to de-risk these processes, returning an element of control to collection holders. At the same time, libraries and archives have limited resources, but are not in competition, so working together makes sense. The OPF can provide the expertise, support and mechanisms to enable this essential activity to happen.

What are you most looking forward to in your first year with the OPF?

Digital Preservation is a fascinating and fun area to work in – there are organisational and technical challenges in equal measure. Until now, I haven’t been able to devote as much time to it as I would like.

At the OPF, I want to tackle the fact that the wide variety of projects and services that we host are, perhaps, not that well recognised by the DP community at large. Our website and comms will need updating, in parallel with membership development activities. I also want to refine the way we engage with our open source communities and projects to make things more streamlined and scalable – and thereby also more sustainable. I will try not to break anything!