Permanent.org https://www.permanent.org/ Nonprofit. Secure. Digital Archives. Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:53:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.permanent.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-Permanent-Icon-512-32x32.png Permanent.org https://www.permanent.org/ 32 32 How to Tell a Story in One Gigabyte https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-in-one-gigabyte/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-in-one-gigabyte/#respond Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:47:08 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8795 Building a personal archive isn’t about uploading as many files as possible. It’s about choosing the right ones to tell a complete story. A good story in an archive has layers. It might include a few photos, a short video clip, or a voice recording. Different formats bring out different sides of the story.  Your free 1 GB gives you room to do this. It can hold around 10,000 PDF documents, 12 hours of audio, a few minutes of 4K video, or a few hundred high-quality photos. That’s more than enough to capture a chapter of your life. It could be something like a wedding, the small business you built, or the first few years ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-to-tell-a-story-in-one-gigabyte/feed/ 0 Documenting Local Stories Builds Community Identity https://www.permanent.org/blog/documenting-local-stories-builds-community-identity/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/documenting-local-stories-builds-community-identity/#respond Thu, 12 Jun 2025 21:46:01 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8751 Preserving your story isn’t just about memory. It’s about identity, belonging, and connection. When we document local stories, we help build stronger, more inclusive communities. And the best part? It all starts with you.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/documenting-local-stories-builds-community-identity/feed/ 0 Go Beyond Basic File Info with Custom Metadata on Permanent https://www.permanent.org/blog/custom-metadata-on-permanent/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/custom-metadata-on-permanent/#respond Mon, 19 May 2025 18:41:47 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8629 Our custom metadata gives you a flexible way to describe your digital legacy in your own words. With this feature, you’re not limited to predefined fields, and you can go beyond basic file info and start building an archive that reflects your unique history and relationships.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/custom-metadata-on-permanent/feed/ 0 Behind the Scenes: Digital Preservation at the Peale https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/#respond Fri, 09 May 2025 20:31:17 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=8611 At Permanent.org, we believe that preserving community stories should be accessible to all. In this guest blog post, we spotlight a recent Byte4Byte internship at The Peale in Baltimore, where University of Maryland graduate student Nicolas Lizarralde helped organize and add metadata to their Out of the Blocks oral history collection. His work not only helped make these powerful community voices more accessible, but also provided The Peale with a clearer path toward sustainable digital preservation. The post is written by both Heather Shelton, the Peale’s Digital Curator, and Nicolas. Heather Shelton: At The Peale in Baltimore, community voices are at the heart of everything we do. Housed in the oldest purpose-built museum building in ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/behind-the-scenes-peale/feed/ 0 March 2025 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/march-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/march-product-updates/#respond Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:24:43 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8371 What We’re Working On March wraps up the first quarter of the year, and our team has been working on a number of improvements that will hopefully make a big difference in our members’ ability to connect with others through the preservation work they’re doing on Permanent. We know that you preserve your legacy or a legacy that’s important to you on Permanent in the hopes that someone – whether that be your loved ones or your great-great-great grandchild – will find meaning in your stories. We are dedicated to improving the sharing and collaboration experience on Permanent so you can focus on capturing and telling your stories. Share with others without a Permanent account ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/march-product-updates/feed/ 0 3-2-1 Backup Rule: Keeping Your Digital Files Safe for the Long Haul  https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/#respond Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:31:27 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8354 The 3-2-1 Rule is designed to create multiple layers of protection for your digital files, ensuring you’re never left without access to your important data. 

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-rule/feed/ 0 Whose Data Is It, Anyway? How Permanent.org Stands Apart https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-permanent-org-stands-apart/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-permanent-org-stands-apart/#respond Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:41:01 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8197 As we celebrate Love Your Data Week, take a moment to reflect on how you’re making informed decisions to preserve and protect your digital legacy.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/how-permanent-org-stands-apart/feed/ 0 February 2025 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/february-2025-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/february-2025-product-updates/#respond Mon, 10 Feb 2025 17:44:13 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8180 What We’re Working On Each quarter, our engineers spend the first two weeks prioritizing “potholes” – updates, improvements, and bug fixes that might slip through the cracks with all the other projects they’re working on. This includes updating other open-source software and libraries that Permanent depends on and improvements that help to create a better code environment for our engineers. Our engineering team worked on some of those improvements in January and has now shifted gears to our larger projects. It might seem like there are fewer visible changes this month on Permanent, but that’s only because there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work happening! Read on for some projects we’re focused on and a few ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/february-2025-product-updates/feed/ 0 Organizing External Storage Media https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:19:03 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=8168 External media, including jump drives, external hard drives, and memory cards, are essential tools for storing files, photos, and videos. As we amass these devices over time, they can add to clutter and become disorganized.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/organizing-external-storage-media/feed/ 0 January 2025 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/january-2025-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/january-2025-product-updates/#respond Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:07:15 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=8048 Happy New Year to the Permanent.org community! The Permanent team is ready to get to work on a number of exciting projects this year. Don’t forget to check out our Member Improvement List for smaller bugs and improvements, but read on for the major projects we’re working on this quarter. What We’re Working On Share with others without a Permanent account (beta): We’ve heard your feedback, and we’re excited to share that we are working on a way for members to share materials with loved ones who might not want to sign up for a Permanent account. This quarter, we will be working on adding basic functionality to create an unlisted share link that members ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/january-2025-product-updates/feed/ 0 December 2024 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/december-2024-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/december-2024-product-updates/#respond Tue, 17 Dec 2024 20:04:22 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=7957 What We’re Working On Wow, what a year it has been for us at Permanent! We have been working on a number of projects, and have managed to wrap up many of them. Read below for an update on what we’re working on and what we’ve accomplished lately. New files uploaded are processed by Archivematica: Our back-end engineer, Liam, has been very busy this year working to integrate Archivematica as our preservation processing system in the back end. As of this month, when you upload a file on Permanent and view it in your archive, you’re seeing an access copy that was generated by Archivematica! It likely doesn’t look any different to our users, but ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/december-2024-product-updates/feed/ 0 November 2024 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/november-2024-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/november-2024-product-updates/#respond Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:16:52 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=7702 What We’re Working On As we begin wrapping up the year, the Permanent team is working diligently to close out some major projects that have been ongoing this year.  Continue Archivematica Integration Work: This quarter, our back-end engineer, Liam, is working on displaying Archivematica-generated access copies of your files in your archive. This is a major milestone for this project! While you will likely not see any difference, new files displayed on Permanent will have been processed using Archivematica.  Release Onboarding UI on Web: While the team is almost finished with implementing the changes to the user interface of archive creation on the web, we are making some important changes to how we release new ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/november-2024-product-updates/feed/ 0 September 2024 Product Updates https://www.permanent.org/blog/september-2024-product-updates/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/september-2024-product-updates/#respond Thu, 05 Sep 2024 13:46:46 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=7490 What We’re Working On At Permanent, we work on a quarterly cadence on several big projects. September wraps up the third quarter of the year, and our team has been working on a number of important projects that we hope to wrap up this month. Below are some highlights about the progress we’ve made this quarter on these projects (check out July’s Product Updates blog post for more information about these projects). Continue Archivematica Integration Work: The Permanent application has previously used multiple sizes of thumbnails across the platform. Archivematica only generates one size. The engineering team decided which size to generate, and added the new thumbnail fields to the appropriate database tables. Staff Admin ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/september-2024-product-updates/feed/ 0 Connecting the Branches of the Family Tree https://www.permanent.org/blog/connecting-the-family-tree/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/connecting-the-family-tree/#respond Mon, 05 Aug 2024 14:09:24 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=7307 For this month’s spotlight, we’re excited to feature the Engh/Jensen/Johnson/Nelsen Archive, created by family historian Cliff Johnson. Cliff’s vision was to capture the rich stories of the four branches of his family tree, from the mid-1800s to the present day. By bringing these stories together in one archive, Cliff has created a beautiful tapestry of family history. The photos included in this blog post offer a glimpse into the treasures he has preserved. Cliff’s work is a great example of how you can display, honor, and share your family history using our platform. Like many family historians, Cliff found himself with a large collection of photos inherited from his grandparents. It can be overwhelming to ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/connecting-the-family-tree/feed/ 0 Product Updates – July 2024 https://www.permanent.org/blog/product-updates-july-2024/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/product-updates-july-2024/#respond Fri, 19 Jul 2024 14:04:34 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=7260 At Permanent, our mission is to preserve and provide access to the rich and varied stories of all people for the educational benefit of the future. We aim to provide you with the tools you need to preserve your legacy. We are constantly working on improving our platform to provide you with a better experience and more functionality to accomplish your goals. To keep you informed about new features and any requests you may have submitted to us, we have created two resources: our Product Roadmap and our Member Improvements List. Our updated Product Roadmap outlines major projects that the Permanent team is working on and their approximate completion dates. We try to keep this ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/product-updates-july-2024/feed/ 0 The King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center Archive https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-king-kamehameha-v-judiciary-history-center-archive/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-king-kamehameha-v-judiciary-history-center-archive/#respond Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:32:56 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/blog/the-king-kamehameha-v-judiciary-history-center-archive/ This month, we are delighted to announce the public unveiling of the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center Archive. As one of our Byte4Byte partners, the Center has worked tirelessly to make their collections accessible through a digital archive on Permanent. Keep reading to learn about the creation and value of this archive, which holds significant educational and historical benefit for current and future generations. Throughout this blog, you will find items from the Center’s collection that capture its rich history.  We spoke with Brieanah Gouveia, the Curator of Collections & Programs, who shared with us some information about the Center and their collections on Permanent. She explains that the collection houses records “from the ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-king-kamehameha-v-judiciary-history-center-archive/feed/ 0 Welcoming TightKnit to the Permanent.org Community! https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/#respond Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:48:45 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/ We are thrilled to share some big news with you: TightKnit is now a part of Permanent.org. This amazing in-kind donation of a web app platform is a first for the Permanent Legacy Foundation, and it’s a huge step forward in our mission to preserve and steward the digital legacies of all people. Let’s explore why our partnership with TightKnit is such a great match, what an in-kind donation means, and what are our plans for the future of TightKnit. Permanent.org and TightKnit, A Perfect Fit As a mission-driven organization, our members are at the center of everything we do and we’re delighted to welcome each and every member of the TightKnit community to the ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/welcoming-tightknit-to-the-permanent-org-community/feed/ 0 The Ron Vincent Archive https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-ron-vincent-archive/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-ron-vincent-archive/#respond Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:31:17 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/blog/the-ron-vincent-archive/ In our last blog post, you saw how publishing your materials in our Permanent Public Gallery helps your loved ones remember you for who you are. Public archives allow you to author your story, in your own words, in a way that reflects the legacy you wish to leave behind. Beyond that, you can also honor the memories of your loved ones by curating a public archive that captures their life’s joys and triumphs.  “The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.” ~Czesław Miłosz Permanent member Ron Vincent has used his public archive to carry forth the memory of his late wife, Susie. Ron explains that ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/the-ron-vincent-archive/feed/ 0 Share Your Unique Story in the Permanent Public Gallery https://www.permanent.org/blog/share-your-unique-story-in-the-permanent-public-gallery/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/share-your-unique-story-in-the-permanent-public-gallery/#respond Tue, 14 May 2024 14:26:00 +0000 https://dev.permanent.org/?p=6826 Publishing materials helps ensure that you are remembered for who you are. During March of 2024 we ran the first cohort of our Legacy Lab program. The program was designed to help our members get started by giving them step-by-step instructions on how to tell a single story using our platform, resulting in several new public archives in the Permanent Public Gallery. The Permanent Public Gallery is how we celebrate the power of personal stories and the impact they can have on future generations. The Permanent Gallery is our mission realized, as the rich collection of public archives creates numerous opportunities for people to educate themselves and learn about our broad historical past. When you ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/share-your-unique-story-in-the-permanent-public-gallery/feed/ 0 Public Archive Spotlight: The I Defend Rights – Memria x Norwegian Human Rights Fund Archive https://www.permanent.org/blog/i-defend-rights-archive-spotlight/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/i-defend-rights-archive-spotlight/#respond Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:35:06 +0000 https://www.permanent.org/?p=6135 All people have a legacy that deserves to be preserved. In other words, we believe it is an essential human right to be able to preserve your legacy. A single story from someone who cares can inspire others to leave the world a better place. One such example of this is the “The I Defend Rights – Memria x Norwegian Human Rights Fund Archive” in our public gallery. Leveraging oral histories recorded on Memria.org, the Norwegian Human Rights Fund’s archive on Permanent acts as a place to store the stories and testimonies of those involved in making the world a better place through their defense of human rights.  According to their website, the fund “works ...

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/i-defend-rights-archive-spotlight/feed/ 0 The Importance of and Opportunities for Community Archiving on Permanent https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/ https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/#respond Mon, 11 Mar 2024 21:48:36 +0000 https://permanent.org/?p=6107 Permanent supports community archiving through our Byte4Byte granting program, which allows our grantees and partners to secure 100GB of cloud storage and intern support for their unique projects and efforts in this area.

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]]> https://www.permanent.org/blog/communityarchiving/feed/ 0