Learning by Doing: Playful Approaches to Preserving the Amateur Drama Collection

The Amateur Drama Collection held at Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), Athlone campus documents decades of creative practice, collaboration, and community engagement connected to the All Ireland Drama Festival. This poster will outline the early stages of a preservation project that approaches digital preservation as a process shaped by experimentation, play, and a willingness to take chances with tools, methods, and ways of working. In keeping with the DPASSH 2026 theme, Ready, Set, Preserve! Making Space for Play in Digital Preservation, the poster will demonstrate how playful learning, adaptation, and collaboration can support sustainable preservation practices. It will describe how the collection presented particular challenges, including mixed formats, fragile materials, and limited or inconsistent description. Rather than relying solely on established archival workflows, the project team intentionally created space for experimentation, treating preservation work as an opportunity to learn through doing in a low-risk environment. The poster will explore how hands-on preservation activities became a form of playful, exploratory learning. Team members experimented with handling techniques, rehousing methods, and safe boxing practices, gradually building confidence in working directly with archival materials. These skills were developed incrementally through trial and error and documented as part of an evolving workflow, supporting both long-term care and future access. A central focus of the poster will be the decision to adapt existing systems rather than introduce new infrastructure. It will explain how the Koha library management system, already in use within the library, was repurposed to catalogue archival materials, and how joining the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) supported public access. The poster will reflect on experimentation with metadata practices, including the conversion of MARC records to Dublin Core, highlighting both the challenges encountered and the value of learning through failure when working across standards. The poster will also discuss experimentation with accessible digital tools, including smartphone scanning applications such as Transkribus for digitisation. It will chart the development of a flexible catalogue–digitise–re-catalogue workflow, demonstrating how iterative testing and adjustment improved outcomes while strengthening quality control. Finally, the poster will consider outreach as a playful and experimental aspect of digital preservation. Informal blog posts on Substack publication were used as reflective spaces, share work in progress, and make preservation activity visible and approachable. Exhibitions, Heritage Week events, social media engagement, collaborations with local drama organisations, and opportunities for volunteers and interns will be presented as integral to the preservation process. By taking chances with tools, workflows, and partnerships, this poster will show how play can function as a productive and meaningful approach to digital preservation practice.