What is Digital Preservation?
- Planning and developing strategy and policy to sustain access to digital materials for as long as is required,
- Liaison with data creators, data users, solution providers, IT departments, records managers, marketing teams, policy makers and more,
- A function which requires different areas of an organization and its stakeholders to work together with strong, enabling leadership,
- Actively monitoring, planning, administering and managing digital materials, systems and workflows to ensure their longevity beyond the limits of technology obsolescence and degradation,
- Assigning the appropriate level of preservation activity for a given set of digital materials,
- Capturing all necessary associated contextual documentation and metadata,
- Ensuring the continued integrity and authenticity of digital materials,
- Only keeping what is required through careful and informed appraisal and selection,
- Using appropriate standards to make digital materials more robust and resilient,
- Adding value to an organization’s digital materials over time,
- Keeping up with changes in the shifting technological landscape,
- Assisting access through the provision of supporting documentation and , where appropriate, for end users,
- A set of activities within any organization – as essential as the power grid or plumbing,
- A cross-organizational business culture - digital preservation should be ‘business as usual’,
- Providing appropriate access, which adheres to contextual security and sensitivity requirements,
What are the Risks of not preserving digital materials?
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Key Motivators |
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Data safety and security are compromised. |
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Technologies used become obsolete; this may apply to elements such as hardware, software and file formats. |
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The bits and bytes making up the digital information degrade over time. |
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Insufficient contextual information (metadata) to understand the information and for it to be useful. |
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Lack of supporting legislation to facilitate preservation, particularly relating to copyright/IPR, privacy and legal deposit. |
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Rate of data creation outstrips capacity for storage, processing and preservation. |
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Insufficient funding available to allow sustainable preservation procedures and systems to be established. |
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Insufficient staffing/skills to be able to carry out successful preservation. |
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What Opportunities do preserved digital materials create?
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Digital Preservation can… |
Key Motivators |
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demonstrate a commitment to transparency and accountability by sustaining an accurate digital record |
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an investment in distinctiveness, competence and competitiveness by providing access to legacy data and digital systems which are essential for innovation, research, development |
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protect investment by maintaining clear audit trails |
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capture potential by providing greater scope for innovation and reuse of data |
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transmit opportunities to future generations by ensuring the right data is available to the right people at the right time in the right format, for as long as necessary |
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provide efficiencies of scale through shared services, resources and systems |
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provide cost efficiencies through planned disposal and deletion which results in reduced storage requirements |
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provide cost and operational efficiencies by allowing the consolidation of legacy systems |
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provide cost efficiencies through the greater automation of processes |
What do organizations need to enable Digital Preservation?
All organisations require the same things to enable effective digital preservation.