Sir Paul McCartney is sponsoring the Digital Preservation Award (call for entries)

The announcement below is from the Digital-Preservation Announcement and Information List.

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Are you completing an exceptional digital preservation project? If so, why not apply for the Digital Preservation Award, worth £5000.

The award is one of five categories recognised by the Conservation Awards, the UK's premier awards in the field of conservation:

• £15,000 for the Award for Conservation.
• £10,000 for the NEW Award for Care of Collections.
• £10,000 for the Student Conservator of the Year and their training institution.
• £5000 for the Digital Preservation Award.
• £2000 for the Anna Plowden Trust Award for Research and Innovation in Conservation.

This is the tenth anniversary of the Conservation Awards, which has a new sponsor - Sir Paul McCartney, and is the second year to include the prestigious Digital Preservation Award, which recognises the many new initiatives being undertaken in the challenging field of digital preservation.

The Awards will be presented at the British Museum on 22 November 2005. Short-listed applicants attract significant publicity, and receive a certificate recognising their achievement at the presentation event. To be eligible for the Digital Preservation Award, a project must demonstrate leadership and advancement in digital preservation which will benefit the UK. It must focus on preserving digital materials (whether "born digital" or digitised copies), rather than on the use of digitisation as a preservation reformatting tool. Only projects that have been completed by 31 May 2005 will be considered for the Award.

Applicants from overseas are welcomed, providing that the project can demonstrate benefit to the UK.

To apply for the Digital Preservation Award online, please complete the DPA/05 application form on the Conservation Awards website: http://www.consawards.ukic.org.uk/dpa2005form.html. The deadline for applications is 31 May 2005.

Queries about the Digital Preservation Award should be directed to Maggie Jones, Executive Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition, by e-mail atmaggie@dpconline.org or by tel. no. 01904 435 362. Further information about the Conservation Awards is available on the website: http://www.consawards.ukic.org.uk/

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The Conservation Awards are supported by Sir Paul McCartney and are also funded and managed in partnership by English Heritage, the Institute of Paper Conservation, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the National Preservation Office and the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation. The Digital Preservation Award is sponsored by the Digital Preservation Coalition and the Research and Innovation Award by the Anna Plowden Trust.