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Digital preservation

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Digital preservation refers to the management of digital information over time. Other than the preservation of paper or microfilm, the preservation of digital information demands constant attention. This constant input of effort, time, and money to handle rapid technological and organisational advance is considered the main stumbling block for preserving digital information beyond a couple of years. Indeed, while we are still able to read our written heritage from several thousand years ago, the digital information created merely a decade ago is in serious danger of being lost.

Digital preservation can therefore be defined as the set of processes and activities that ensure the continued access to information and all kinds of cultural heritage existing in digital formats.

Digital preservation is defined as: long-term, error-free storage of digital files, with means for retrieval and interpretation of needed files from the long-term, error-free digital storage, for all the time span that the storage continues on. "Retrieval" means obtaining needed digital files from the long-term, error-free digital storage, without possibility of corrupting the continued error-free storage of the digital files. "Interpretation" means that the retrieved digital files, files that, for example, are of texts, charts, images or sounds, are decoded and transformed into usable representations.

See also: Preservation Issues, Enterprise content management, Digital object.

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