Preservation Planning

Preservation Planning is perhaps the core OAIS function. It defines and manages strategies to enable digital objects, stored as Archival Information Packages (AIPs), to move through time without suffering unacceptable losses and changes to content or functionality. It starts long before objects are moved into a formal long-term preservation system and continues throughout their existence.

Preservation Planning is another OAIS function where organizational concerns lead, as in Administration and Archival Storage. Determining which preservation strategies will be developed and when and in what circumstance the strategies will be implemented is the essence of digital preservation. This function, like the others, cannot be done absent technology, but the final decision-making responsibility rests on the organizational side.

0101 IT people can participate in Preservation Planning by:

• watching for and reporting on changes in the technology world that might affect the archive and its contents
• assisting in the design of migration plans
• analyzing software and hardware needs
• designing and creating software to carry out preservation plans

$$$$ Preservation planning demonstrates more clearly than other functions that digital preservation is a shared responsibility, both within and between institutions. An organization needs to determine the contributions it can make to community-based developments of preservation strategies and the ongoing technology watch and how it can benefit from external research and development. The organization needs to identify and adopt appropriate preservation strategies.