A survey of digital preservation strategies

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Luan, Feng | Nygård, Mads | Mestl, Thomas

Affiliations: Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7031, Trondheim, Norway. luan@idi.ntnu.no | Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7031, Trondheim, Norway. mads@idi.ntnu.no | Research and Innovation, Det Norske Veritas, N-1322, Høvik, Norway. thomas.mestl@dnv.com

Abstract: Digital information is created easily by a wide range of electronic devices. But, it is surprisingly difficult to preserve digital information over a long period, because both technology as well as relevant organizational context change over time. Without careful protection, there is a real risk that these data can neither be retrieved from old storage media, nor that its content be rendered from old file formats or understood. In the future, our society may indeed be confronted with a digital ‘black hole’. From the 1990s, scientists and curators started to design long-term digital preservation systems and strategies that shall enable the survival of digital information. This survey article gives an overview of the current main preservation strategies. We further discuss and compare those strategies. Finally, we design two procedures for making information accessible and manipulable over time. At the end of the article, some emerging challenges for preservation strategies are addressed briefly.

DOI: 10.3233/WDL-120065

Journal: World Digital Libraries - An international journal, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 133-150, 2010