Contents:
- Executive Summary
- Preface
- 1. Purpose and Background of the Report
- 2. The Economic Perspective on Digital Preservation
- 3. Addressing Economic Risks to Sustainability
- 4. Sustainable Preservation in Context
- 5. Recommendations for Achieving Sustainability
- Appendix 1. Characteristics of Sustainability in Public and Corporate Records
- Appendix 2. Analog and Digital Preservation Strategies
- Appendix 3. When Markets Do Not Work
- Appendix 4. Mechanism Design
- Appendix 5. Representing Stakeholder Interests and the Role of Proxy Organizations
- Appendix 6. Flexibility in Preservation Decision Making
- Appendix 7. Policy Frameworks for Digital Preservation
- Glossary.
This final report from the US-UK based Blue Ribbon Task Force addresses the structural issues in digital preservation from an economics viewpoint. It considers the broad economic setting, including perceived value, of digital materials, incentives to preserve them and the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders sharing an interest in their long term preservation. It includes findings and provides action agendas on organizational, technical, public policy and education and public outreach levels for decision makers. The report is based on real world case studies and focuses on four content domains: Scholarly discourse, Research, Commercially owned cultural content and Collectively created web content.
Although its focus has a US and UK context, the recommendations for action are applicable on a broader scale. It is a definitive policy work on the current digital information landscape and targets digital information creators, funders of creation and managers of digital information. It is especially valuable for its specific ‘action agenda’ recommendations on how to achieve sustainabilty.