Digital Preservation Coalition

The origins of the DPC are rooted in a 1995 workshop put on by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the British Library at the University of Warwick, focusing on how to approach the digital preservation. Internet usage was rapidly increasing, user expectations of digital resources were greater, and more users and institutions were seeking information across international borders in the late-20th century. The scholastic community at large was apprehensive to make a serious effort toward converting to digital systems without more permanent solutions to ensure the integrity and authenticity of electronic resources, due to the instability experienced in some U.S. government archives that was generated by physical decay of storage media and obsolete hardware and software. The 1995 workshop at the University of Warwick led to research into the various necessary elements of digital preservation, which concluded in 1999. Proposals for the DPC were published in D-lib magazine in February 2001, began operations in July of the same year, and officially launched at the House of Commons in February 2002. DPC was incorporated on 23 July 2002 and registered as a charity in June 2021.

The DPC was originally established with an office at King's College London before moving to the University of York with Maggie Jones who was the DPC's first full time member of staff. A new office was added at the University of Glasgow in 2009 when William Kilbride was appointed Executive Director. In 2019 DPC reached agreement to open an additional office at the University of Melbourne and at the start of 2024 it announced an agreement with ITHAKA to establish a permanent staff presence based in New York.

The DPC's founding mission included the development and promotion of good practice in what was an emergent field. A series of commissioned subject-specialist Technology Watch Reports was established in 2003 and the first report published in 2004. The series continues to publish with around 50 titles in the series. It is supported by a series of briefing days in which authors and stakeholder debate the themes of the report.