Unless they are vendors of storage or digital preservation services, profit making business do not have collection as their core mandate, and tend to be driven by market share, reputation, profit, branding and their perceived trustworthiness within their own market. This may mean that it is often harder to make the case for digital preservation in business archives, but digital materials play a crucial role in a company’s distinctiveness, competence and competitiveness.
What is Digital Preservation?
- Managing the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the organization’s records to ensure efficient and accurate access,
- Applying retention periods correctly, avoiding unnecessary risks.
What are the Risks of not preserving digital materials?
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Risks |
Potential Consequences |
Key Motivators |
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Existing storage systems do not protect records from unauthorised change or corruption |
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Staff fail to comply with organizational policy and processes in relation to management of records (reliability, authenticity, usability etc.), |
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Inability to provide evidence of compliance with regulations |
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Business processes rely on file formats and storage media that are becoming obsolete |
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Inability to produce reliable and authentic records necessary to pursue or defend legal claims |
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Loss of corporate memory |
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The archive team do not have the tools required for effective search and retrieval of digital holdings |
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Inability to reuse valuable information |
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Volume of data continues to grow without action being taken |
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What Opportunities do preserved digital materials create?
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Digital Preservation can… |
Key Motivators |
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enable better cooperation with regulatory bodies by sustaining access to reliable records as evidence of actions. |
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allow an organization to defend decisions and attribute responsibility by sustaining access to reliable records as evidence of actions for legal, regulatory and IPR cases |
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enable the organization to respond more efficiently to legal holds by sustaining access to reliable records |
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demonstrate increased transparency through improved access to records for stakeholders, |
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inspire brand evolution through an understanding of corporate history enabled by access to a complete set of reliable records |
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inform business initiatives today through an understanding of previous decisions and rationale enabled by access to a complete set of reliable records |
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protect against financial losses by enabling the provision of evidence for legal and regulatory cases |
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add value and create opportunities for the business by leveraging corporate memory as an asset |
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provide cost efficiencies through planned disposal and deletion according to specified retention schedules, which results in reduced storage requirements |
What do Businesses need to enable Digital Preservation?
All organisations require the same things to enable effective digital preservation.