Digital Curation and Preservation Principles
These ten principles encapsulate the fundamentals of current standards and practice for digital curation and preservation. Any organization with long-term responsibility for digital content should strive to achieve the outcomes that are specified in these principles.
- Identify the digital content within our scope of responsibility
The repository is producing a high-level inventory of its existing and anticipated digital content. - Specify the digital content we intend to preserve
The repository will continually evaluate to prioritize the portion of its content to preserve. - Establish requirements for storing files in preservation formats
The repository will identify preservation requirements specific to each digital content type. - Determine (and review) our best option(s) for storing our digital content
The repository will actively maintain storage that is appropriate to its content and affordable. - Verify that our digital content is secure during day-to-day activities
The repository will address the rights, confidentiality, and security requirements for its content. - Ensure that our digital content is prepared for an emergency
The repository will extend its disaster planning program to explicitly include digital content. - Develop (and review) plans for managing digital content over time
The repository will establish and sustain effective preservation planning for its digital content. - Define a standards-based framework to develop and manage our DCP program
The repository will define and maintain a compliant curation and preservation framework. - Demonstrate that long-term access t is the purpose of digital preservation
The repository will take steps to enable long-term access, as needed, to its digital collections. - Stipulate that the means to deliver digital content to users will remain current
The repository will leverage contemporaneous technologies to provide access to its content.
Acknowledgement
These guiding principles were adapted from the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE): Operating Principles (ver. 2.0) developed in 2011 by Nancy McGovern for the DPOE program sponsored by the Library of Congress.