DPC Meeting Notes

20 Dec 2004

Prepared by A. Novak

TOPIC: Financial sustainability

DISCUSSION:

When discussing financial sustainability of digital preservation the majority of our observations focused on the fact that we think the dynamic nature of digital preservation and all the unknowns about technology means that the cost of this activity is probably higher than that related to traditional preservation and will be difficult to predict. We discussed and generally agreed that:

• Emphasizing that the commitment to digital preservation is an ongoing financial obligation is important. Equally important is the need to continually reassess this commitment because everything about digital assets and their environment changes. The emphasis should be on the dynamic nature of digital preservation.
• Examples of costs should be included in the financial sustainability section of our policy in order to instruct and illustrate, e.g. like those listed in the table of Costs in erpa Digital Preservation Policy Tool.
• Adherence to our policies and best practices will help contain costs.
• The demands of the technology can tax the resources. It’s not possible to know the long-term financial commitments. We should expect spikes in the financial demands. On the other hand, we acknowledged that this statement is true about a lot of operations, including, for example, Orbis.
• We believe that our digital preservation investments will have a shorter lifespan than those for traditional preservation because the technology component of digital preservation makes it more volatile. We can’t as easily, for example, amass a large pool of digital objects while we wait for the perfect grant to fund their preservation. Also, the volatile nature of digital assets will often force us to act faster in order to preserve the assets.
• Digital preservation is more active than traditional preservation, i.e., it’s easier to delay traditional preservation than it is to delay digital preservation.
• With digital preservation, conservation and preservation cannot be separated.
• Acquisitions may present a digital preservation surprise – the surprise being the shorter timeframe (at times immediate) for preservation action for the newly acquired digital asset. We acknowledged the need for increased awareness of the financial implications when acquiring digital objects. (Placeholder for best practices section).
• Digital preservation should be funded centrally, but preparing material for submission would be funded at the curatorial/department/owner level. (Placeholder for best practices section -- include section on processing).