Information Technology Challenges for the Long-term Preservation of Electronic Information

• Information technology in combination with changes in organizational structures and forms for work has led to an increasing amount of information and also to totally new forms of information and records creation. Furthermore the e-government services, where the whole idea is to exchange information electronically, will speed up this development. A 10-year period is a long time when it comes to preserving electronic records. This is of course due to the rapid technological development, for example the problems with obsolete software and file formats. However, since archives are records of permanent and enduring value, it is essential that methods must be developed to ensure that digital records can be preserved for much longer time. Archival practice has for a long time been intertwined with information technology, dealing with the production, organization, storage, dissemination, and retrieval of records, using the technology at hand. This implies that the responsibility for research and development should lie upon researchers from both domains in collaboration. In this paper some problem domains of long-term preservation and how ongoing research matches these domains is presented. It seems clear that although much of the challenges associated with digital preservation is strategic, organizational, and structural and not only technical, the research concentrates at solving the technical issues.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

long-term preservation

electronic information

Informatics, computer and systems science

Informatik, data- och systemvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)