Digital curation and long-term digital preservation in libraries

Abstract

For over twenty years public institutions and foundations committed in cultural heritage curation and preservation worked up methodologies, strategies and techniques for long-term digital preservation of digital resources. Thanks to a relevant number of initiatives and services carried on by international institutions and specialized agencies, public and private libraries reached a high level of awareness in this field which requires continuous adaptation due to the constant evolution of publishing industry and the rapid emergence of Open Science.

After a quick review of digital preservation milestones, this article looks at some emerging trends and issues which characterize the constant transformation of digital preservation landscape. Dynamic generated digital contents and Open Science to fulfil findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse (FAIR) of digital assets are engaging new challenges for existing digital preservation services. Digital curation and digital preservation are deeply merged and proceed in parallel to assure long-term usage of digital resources and data. How to select and deploy digital preservation platforms is another complex area where Cloud services can offer the opportunity to reduce the costs of technical infrastructures maintenance and management. Policy and decision making institutional levels need more awareness to draw up digital preservation strategies and to activate services to assure digital contents and data long-term access and reuse. Finally the paper suggests to promote “digital preservation by design” as a new base rule to be applied since the conception of every project and initiative in the cultural heritage, scientific and academic contexts.