III.3: Digital Preservation
Advocate on Issues of Digital Preservation Other Information:
In many ways, IASSIST has been working on issues of digital preservation since its inception thirty years ago. As the organization’s
members developed standards for storing, refreshing, and migrating social science data, the computing environment associated
with social science research expanded to include a growing body of digital formats and media. Today, as organizations confront
the challenge of digital preservation, IASSIST members must once again offer their expertise in preserving social science
data while continuing to provide access to these holdings. With over thirty years of experience in preserving digital collections,
the IASSIST community has an obligation to share its experiences, exchange knowledge and develop partnerships with others
in the larger digital preservation community. These exchanges will not only provide opportunities for IASSIST members to learn
about developments in technology and good practice in other digital preservation areas, but also will increase the likelihood
that issues regarding social science data are included in today’s broad-based digital preservation strategies. Activities
in this strategy could include: § Participate in the planning and implementation of a variety of digital preservation projects.
§ Consider creating an Interest Group to monitor and evaluate a variety of digital preservation strategies for social science
data. Given the wide range of digital preservation strategies and the lack of long-term studies on these strategies, this
group could identify best practices and strategies for the organization. § Support the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)
metadata standard as a vendorindependent preservation strategy for social science data.
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