As library people, we think about making our information and materials available to our communities every day.  Part of that work is a responsibility to think about making it all available to people in the future. The Web is like a living thing – it changes, grows, and pieces can die; thinking about preserving information needs to take into account those potential changes.

The Digital Preservation Network is already thinking about this, and helping to establish a safe system as well as best practices for you to preserve information. Their audience is academic environments, potentially producing unique material that may not be available elsewhere. As we have seen in the recent news, turbulent political changes can cause information to disappear or to be suppressed; the DPN can help libraries to preserve and share their information. Likewise, natural disasters can destroy buildings holding both paper materials and servers holding backups, ransomware attacks can happen, institutions can change or fall, and just bad luck and bad planning can destroy years of work. Having information available through something like the DPN will help to ensure its survival. Continue reading Preserve your past; Think about the future! →