The Three C’s of Digital Preservation: Contact, Context, Collaboration

The Three C’s of Digital Preservation: Contact, Context, Collaboration. Brittany. DigHist Blog. May 5, 2016.
     The post looks at three themes from learning about digital preservation: "every contact leaves a trace, context is crucial, and collaboration is the key".

Contact: A digital object is more than we see, and we need to take into consideration the hardware, software, code, and everything that runs underneath it. There are "layers and layers of platforms on top of platforms for any given digital object", the software, the browser, the operating system and others. These layers or platforms are constantly obsolescing or changing and "cannot be relied upon to preserve the digital objects.  Especially since most platforms are proprietary and able to disappear in an instant."

Context is Crucial: "There’s no use in saving everything about a digital object if we don’t have any context to go with it." Capture the human experience with the digital objects. 

Collaboration is the Key: "There are a number of roles played by different people in digital preservation, and these roles are conflating and overlapping." As funding becomes tighter and the digital world more complex, "collaboration is going to become essential for a lot of digital preservation projects".   

There are still many unanswered questions that need to be asked and answered.

Digital Preservation Matters.