# digital preservation

> formal endeavor to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible, trustworthy, and usable

**Wikidata**: [Q632897](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q632897)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/digital-preservation

## Summary
Digital preservation is a formal endeavor to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible, trustworthy, and usable over time. It encompasses strategies and actions to maintain digital materials so they can be accessed and understood in the future, even as technology changes.

## Key Facts
- Digital preservation is classified as an academic discipline and field of study
- It is a subclass of data preservation and storing
- The field has 25 Wikipedia language editions including English, Spanish, German, and French
- Library of Congress authority ID: sh95004496
- Dewey Decimal Classification: 025.84
- Notable practitioners include Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive
- Related organizations include the National Library of Australia's Pandora Archive (established 1996)
- Tools and projects include Webrecorder (founded 2020), Libsafe, and Arkivum

## FAQs
### Q: What is the difference between digital preservation and data backup?
A: Digital preservation focuses on maintaining long-term access and usability of digital materials with continuing value, while data backup is primarily about creating copies for recovery from loss or damage. Preservation includes strategies for format migration, metadata maintenance, and ensuring future accessibility.

### Q: Why is digital preservation necessary?
A: Digital materials are vulnerable to technological obsolescence, media degradation, and format changes. Without preservation efforts, valuable digital information can become inaccessible within years or decades, unlike physical materials that may last centuries with proper care.

### Q: What types of digital materials need preservation?
A: Any digital content with continuing value needs preservation, including research data, cultural heritage materials, government records, scientific datasets, and historical documents. This includes born-digital materials and digitized versions of physical items.

## Why It Matters
Digital preservation addresses the critical challenge of maintaining access to our increasingly digital cultural heritage and knowledge base. As society generates more information in digital formats than ever before, the risk of losing valuable content due to technological changes grows exponentially. Without preservation efforts, future generations could lose access to scientific research, historical records, creative works, and institutional knowledge that exist only in digital form. The field ensures that digital materials remain authentic, reliable, and usable long after their creation, supporting research, education, cultural continuity, and informed decision-making. Digital preservation also enables compliance with legal and regulatory requirements for record-keeping and supports the fundamental human right to access information.

## Notable For
- Addresses the unique challenges of technological obsolescence and format dependency that physical preservation does not face
- Involves complex strategies including emulation, migration, and normalization to maintain accessibility
- Supports multiple specialized subfields including web archiving, software preservation, and email archiving
- Requires ongoing maintenance and active management rather than passive storage
- Combines technical, organizational, and policy considerations to ensure long-term access

## Body
### Core Concepts and Scope
Digital preservation operates at the intersection of technology, information science, and archival practice. The field addresses the fundamental challenge that digital information requires active intervention to remain accessible, unlike physical materials that may persist with minimal intervention.

### Technical Approaches
Preservation strategies include bit-stream preservation (maintaining exact copies of digital bits), format migration (converting files to current formats), and emulation (creating software environments that mimic original systems). These approaches address different aspects of digital longevity and are often used in combination.

### Organizational Frameworks
Successful digital preservation requires organizational commitment, including dedicated resources, policies, and workflows. This includes establishing preservation policies, assigning responsibilities, and creating sustainable funding models for long-term maintenance.

### Standards and Best Practices
The field follows established standards and guidelines, including those from the Library of Congress, ISO standards for digital preservation, and frameworks like OAIS (Open Archival Information System). These provide frameworks for implementing effective preservation programs.

### Related Disciplines
Digital preservation connects with related fields including digital curation, data management, records management, and digital forensics. While each has distinct focuses, they share common concerns about maintaining digital information over time.

### Tools and Technologies
Various tools support digital preservation activities, including specialized software for format validation, metadata extraction, and content management. Commercial solutions like Arkivum and open-source tools like Webrecorder provide different approaches to preservation challenges.

## Schema Markup
```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Thing",
  "name": "digital preservation",
  "description": "formal endeavor to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible, trustworthy, and usable",
  "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1662687",
    "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation"
  ],
  "additionalType": "AcademicDiscipline"
}

## References

1. Nuovo soggettario
2. BnF authorities
3. IdRef
4. Taxonomy of Digital Research Activities in the Humanities
5. Freebase Data Dumps. 2013
6. BBC Things
7. Faceted Application of Subject Terminology
8. BabelNet
9. Quora
10. National Library of Israel Names and Subjects Authority File
11. [OpenAlex](https://docs.openalex.org/download-snapshot/snapshot-data-format)
12. Wikibase TDKIV