My presentation opens with an overview of the technological, legal, social, economic and organizational issues that make preservation of digital information different from preservation of conventional materials in libraries and archives. Today's digital information increasingly is dynamic, complex, multi-medial, linked to other resources, and dependent on rapidly changing computer hardware and software systems. These characteristics of digital materials make preservation challenging and demanding of attention and resources. At the same time, libraries and archives lack the technological infrastructure and expertise to address digital preservation. Recent changes in law and contracts governing digital intellectual property and uncertainty about the costs of digital preservation add to the confusion over what to do about digital preservation.

Research and development in the last three to five years has spawned several promising technical approaches to digital preservation. The space science data community has developed a common model, the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model, for archival repositories that soon will be adopted as an international standard. Designed originally for observational data from satellites, this model is gaining acceptance in the library and archival communities. Standards for digitization projects help organizations scan, describe and store converted digital objects with preservation in mind. Experiments with large-scale migration and tests of the risks associated with format conversions can support more informed decisions about digital preservation strategies. Research on emulation has the potential to offer manageable solutions to the problem of technology obsolescence.

Legal, organizational and economic issues remain a significant challenge for long-term preservation of digital materials. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Rights Management Systems and strict licensing agreements with publishers constrain what libraries and archives are permitted to do to preserve digital information. Effective and economical digital preservation efforts also require much more inter-institutional cooperation among libraries. Although there are some good models of building distributed digital collections of materials that have been converted from analog to digital form, there are few examples of shared responsibility for preserving born-digital information. Insufficient data on the costs of digital information and the lack of readily available products and services to support preservation create additional obstacles to planning and program development. Although many technical problems remain, the most pressing issues for libraries are legal, organizational, and economic.

Margaret Hedstrom is an Associate Professor at the School of Information, University of Michigan where she teaches in the areas of archives, electronic records management, and digital preservation. She has published widely on many aspects of archival management, electronic records, and preservation in digital environments. She is currently writing a book on digital preservation to be published by The MIT Press in 2002. Her current research interests include digital preservation strategies, the impact of electronic communications on organizational memory and documentation, and remote access to archival materials. She recently served on the National Research Council Committee that produced LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress. Before joining the faculty at Michigan in 1995, she was Chief of State Records Advisory Services and Director of the Center for Electronic Records at the New York State Archives and Records Administration. Dr. Hedstrom earned Master's Degrees in Library Science and History and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been a consultant to more than a dozen government archival programs, the World Bank, the International Council on Archives, and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Hedstrom is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists and she was the first recipient of the annual Award for Excellence in New York State Government Information Services. She recently received a Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award for her work in South Africa from the University of Michigan.

Associate Professor
University of Michigan, School of Information
150 East University
3082 West Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092
Work phone: (734) 647-3582
Fax: (734) 764-2475