Technology

Organization Type

Risk

Potential Consequences

All organizations

Technologies used become obsolete; this may apply to elements such as hardware, software and file formats.

• Unable to provide access to digital objects
• Required to maintain expensive legacy systems
• Disruption of business/organisation’s functions
• Unable to provide audit trails
• Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Rate of data creation outstrips capacity for storage, processing and preservation.

• Important digital objects are not captured within the preservation system
• Data loss/corruption

All organizations

Insufficient funding available to allow sustainable preservation procedures and systems to be established.

• Data loss/corruption
• Unable to carry out necessary preservation actions
• Unable to provide access to digital objects
• Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

Archives

Failure to maintain preservation system and processes.

• Preservation system/processes become redundant/ineffectual
• Data loss/corruption
• Unable to provide access to digital objects
• High cost of replacing/extracting data from outdated systems

Higher Education and Research

The hardware or software required to interpret, and present digital information is no longer available

• Unable to provide access to information required to support organizational processes
• Disruption of organization’s functions
• Increased costs now and in the future

Libraries

Storage conditions are inadequate for preservation

• Data loss/corruption
• Disruption of organisation’s functions
• Confidence loss
• Damage to reputation

Libraries

Do not adequately consider the preservation needs of complex digital objects, including new publication formats

• Data generated by the cultural and creative industries will be lost or inaccessible
• Loss of context/documentation
• Loss of reputation
• Loss of funding

Organization Type

Digital Preservation can…

All organizations

provide efficiencies of scale through shared services, resources and systems

All organizations

provide cost efficiencies through planned disposal and deletion which results in reduced storage requirements

All organizations

provide cost and operational efficiencies by allowing the consolidation of legacy systems

All organizations

provide cost efficiencies through the greater automation of processes

Business

provide cost efficiencies through planned disposal and deletion according to specified retention schedules, which results in reduced storage requirements

Higher Education and Research

create a pathway for smaller organizations to take advantage of enterprise level infrastructure through shared or cloud services

Higher Education and Research

reduce duplication of infrastructure and effort by sharing services, systems and storage with other institutions

Higher Education and Research

make the right information is available at the right time, by using the most appropriate service

Higher Education and Research

avoid wasted expenditure and reduce long-term operational costs by considering access and reuse at the stage of data generation, creation and system design.

Higher Education and Research

enable informed and planned disposal as well as retention which mitigates the continuous increase in the volume of time-series data, as well as the cost of managing it

Museums and Galleries

cut the costs of viewing rooms open to the public by moving some collections into deep storage