Digital Longevity: Learnings from the (Digital) History project Stadt.Geschichte.Basel.

This session explores the critical challenge of digital longevity in the field of digital history, with a focus on the public history project Stadt.Geschichte.Basel. It highlights the Endings Project at the University of Victoria, which proposes a comprehensive framework of principles to ensure the sustainability of digital projects. These principles emphasize the importance of open data formats, detailed documentation, rigorous editing, user-centric product design without server-side dependencies, and a strategic release management protocol to mitigate the risks associated with a potential "digital dark age". The Stadt.Geschichte.Basel project exemplifies the application of these principles and demonstrates how a publicly funded digital history initiative can achieve long-term preservation and openness. The project emphasizes the need for ongoing stakeholder engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the application of user-centered design for inclusive and effective user participation. It emphasizes the importance of iterative refinement in the development process to address the technical and organizational complexities inherent in multi-stakeholder settings. By extracting best practices from the Stadt.Geschichte.Basel experience, this session contributes to the discourse on project management in digital history and serves as a guide for creating resilient, user-centered, and sustainably managed digital resources.