Contents:
- Core Concepts of Digital Preservation
- Redundancy and Distribution
- Fixity
- Migration to different storage media
- Interoperability
- Overwhelm the future with metadata
- Quick recommendations
- Online resources on Digital Preservation
- Vendors and Services
This article presents the core concepts of digital preservation and forms part of the Oral History in the Digital Age website, a best practices site funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Written by the director of the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky it covers the most essential areas of digital preservation including an overview of possible storage system architectures, the issue of fixity, the need to consider interoperability issues and how essential technical and preservation metadata are to ensure long term viability.
This well written article provides accessible and straightforward advice to those responsible for managing digital oral history collections. While not meant to be an exhaustive paper on the subject of digital life cycle management, it does manage to cover all the important issues and is particularly good in emphasizing the need to consider long term digital management from the start and in encouraging oral historians to find a good preservation partner to ensure the long term viability of audio collections in cultural heritage archives. It offers advice for small as well as larger institutions.