Digital Preservation
The active management of digital records over the long term to keep them authentic, usable, and accessible despite format obsolescence, media decay, and changing technology.
Digital preservation is the set of strategies and activities that keep digital records usable far into the future. Unlike paper, a digital record depends on file formats, software, and storage media that all become obsolete or degrade over time — so preservation must be active, not passive.
Common strategies include format migration (converting records to current, sustainable formats), emulation (recreating old computing environments), fixity checks (using checksums to detect corruption), redundant and geographically dispersed storage, and maintaining rich metadata so records remain identifiable and interpretable. Institutions such as the Library of Congress and national archives lead much of this practice. Digital preservation is what allows records of enduring value in an archives to survive decades of technological change.