Preservation of Digital Information in Library and Information Centers

What Is Digital Preservation?

While information traditionally available in print has been stored for thousands of years there is a fear that digital information is in danger of being lost within decades. Digital preservation can be seen as the set of processes and activities that ensure information which now exists in digital formats is backed up and distributed to ensure continued access for the long term (Oxford, 2012).

Increasingly, the information that support learning, scholarship and research—its raw materials and products—is created in and provisioned by digital systems in digital form. The digital preservation field is concerned with maintaining the accessibility of that information over time and digital preservation services attempt to lower the risk of that information becoming practically inaccessible (Sulstanford, 2012).

• 1.

  “Digital preservation is a process of ensuring that a digital object is accessible over the long term,” according to Glossary of LIFE.

• 2.

  “Digital preservation encompasses a broad range of activities designed to extent the usable life of machine—readable computer files and protect them from media failure, physical loss and obsolescence,” according to Trusted Digital Repositories (TDR).

Strategies

Preservation strategies in academic and research libraries are not new concepts. However, with an increasing amount of digital content, organizations have to cope with a new set of preservation issues.