Digital Preservation through Digital Sustainability

Digital Preservation through Digital Sustainability. Matthias Stuermer, Gabriel Abu-Tayeh. iPres 2016.  (Proceedings p. 18 - 22/ PDF p. 10-12).
     The concept of digital sustainability examines how to maximize the benefits of digital resources. They specify nine basic conditions for digital sustainability which also contribute to potential solutions to the challenges of digital preservation:

    Conditions regarding the digital artifact:

1. Elaborateness: For instance, data quality requires characteristics such as accuracy, relevancy, timeliness, completeness and many more characteristics. Quality of data plays a significant role within digital preservation
2. Transparent structures: technical openness of content and software is essential for digital sustainability. Open standards and open file formats are particularly important for digital preservation.
3. Semantic data: adding meaningful information about the data to make it more easily comprehensible
4. Distributed location: redundant storage of information in different locations decreases the risk of loss

    Conditions regarding the ecosystem:

5. Open licensing regime: the legal framework plays a crucial role for digital artifacts. Objects are protected by rights, but it hinders the use of digital assets and decreases their potential for society as a whole.
6. Shared tacit knowledge: enables individuals and groups to understand and apply technologies and create further knowledge, which all needs to be updated and adapted continuously
7. Participatory culture: an active ecosystem leads to significant contributions from outsiders such as volunteers. The expertise from an international set of contributors can lead to high-quality peer-reviewed processes of knowledge creation.
8. Good governance: While technology companies and innovative business models are considered part of sustainable digital resources, they should remain independent from self-serving commercial interests and control by a few individuals.
9. Diversified funding: this reduces control by a single organization, which increases the independence of the endeavor.

Digital Preservation Matters.