Digital Preservation

Maintaining the usability of content in electronic form (documents, objects, records, or data) requires an institutional commitment to sustainability, a deep technology infrastructure, and centers of expertise.

This section of the Library Preservation at Harvard site provides links to selected services and guidance from the Harvard University Library, as well as documentation and practices from the growing international community engaged in preserving digital and digitzed works.

The WPC database of vertical files includes citations to articles, reports, and literature pertaining to the rapidly expanding topic of digital preservation.

Digitization for Preservation?

The Weissman Preservation Center advocates an overarching set of principles for reformatting library collections to maximize the longevity and the utility of surrogates (whether digital or analog).

Pending the development of standards and codification of practices for "preservation digitization," the Harvard University Library provides guidance in creating sustainable digital surrogates of audio, pictorial, and textual resources commonly found in research library collections.

Portals and Bibliography

• Digital Curation Centre (DCC), providing a (UK) national focus on curation issues. DCC also publishes a Digital Curation blog "to discuss issues relating to the curation and long term preservation of digital science and research data."
• Digital Preservation Coalition, UK services and portal, including links to Technology Watch reports
• NDIIPP, the U.S. National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
• PADI, Preserving Access to Digital Information, a comprehensive and current subject gateway to international preservation resources
• Weissman Preservation Center, Digital Preservation: A Brief Resource List