Sustainable Digital Preservation Initiatives Benefit from Multi-Pronged Approach

Abstract

Objective – To define principles for the sustainable management and preservation of digital resources. Design – Survey and literature review. Setting – Academic libraries in South Africa. Subjects – Twenty-two academic institutions in South Africa. Methods – The researchers evaluated four conceptual models of digital preservation and conducted a literature review for the same subject. Informed by these reviews, the researchers developed a questionnaire for South African academic institutions, distributed the questionnaire, and studied the results using statistical analysis software. Main Results – Twenty-two of twenty-seven (81.5%) surveys were returned. Results indicated a broad consensus about which factors were important in sustainable digital preservation; all factors listed received anywhere from 86.3% to 100% agreement among respondents. Conclusion – A proposed conceptual integrated digital preservation model recommends a three-pronged approach to address management-related, resource-related, and technological-related factors in sustainable digital preservation.