Sustainable economics for a digital planet: ensuring long-term access to digital information. Final report of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access.

摘要

Digital information is a vital resource in our knowledge economy, valuable for researchudand education, science and the humanities, creative and cultural activities, and publicudpolicy. But digital information is inherently fragile and often at risk of loss. Access toudvaluable digital materials tomorrow depends upon preservation actions taken today; and,udover time, access depends on ongoing and efficient allocation of resources toudpreservation.udEnsuring that valuable digital assets will be available for future use is not simply a matterudof finding sufficient funds. It is about mobilizing resources—human, technical, andudfinancial—across a spectrum of stakeholders diffuse over both space and time. Butudquestions remain about what digital information we should preserve, who is responsibleudfor preserving, and who will pay.udThe Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access investigatedudthese questions from an economic perspective. In this report, we identify problemsudintrinsic to all preserved digital materials, and propose actions that stakeholders can takeudto meet these challenges to sustainability. We developed action agendas that are targetedudto major stakeholder groups and to domain-specific preservation strategies.udThe Task Force focused its inquiry on materials that are of long-term public interest,udlooking at four content domains with diverse preservation profiles:udScholarly discourse: the published output of scholarly inquiry.udResearch data: the primary inputs into research, as well as the first-order results ofudthat research.udCommercially owned cultural content: culturally significant digital content that is ownedudby a private entity and is under copyright protection; andudCollectively produced Web content: Web content that is created interactively, the resultudof collaboration and contributions by consumers.