What is the primary goal of digital preservation?

The primary goal of digital preservation is to maintain long-term access to digital materials. This involves a range of strategies and practices that ensure digital content remains accessible, usable, and intact over time, despite changes in technology, formats, or potential data degradation. Digital preservation is crucial because it addresses the challenges posed by rapid technological advancements, data obsolescence, and the risk of data loss due to hardware failures or software issues.

While creating duplicates of digital content can be a component of preservation efforts, duplication alone does not ensure that the content remains accessible or usable over the long term. Archiving as much data as possible can lead to storage challenges and may not prioritize the actual preservation and usability of significant materials. Selling access to digital content doesn’t align with the purpose of preservation, which is to safeguard and ensure continued access to digital materials for users and future generations.