CNI Fall 2018 Membership Meeting

Ensuring the long-term preservation of digital information for future users has been one of the key aspirations of the research library community. Ithaka S+R has been exploring the current state of digital preservation in order to identify research questions and areas for action. Based on interviews with 21 subject experts, we gathered perspectives on the successes, gaps, outstanding issues, and emerging needs in digital preservation. Although the conversations were open-ended, they were framed with questions to probe what seems to be working well now, new research workflows or cultural practices that require novel preservation strategies, and areas that need further attention and research. Our study shows areas of significant progress in the preservation landscape as the community has grown and has established important collaborations. However, the interviews revealed a number of concerns with the pace and nature of these developments and identified several issues that would benefit from further exploration. For this session, we plan to share what we have learned and gather feedback and additional perspectives, as we work to generate a research agenda for Ithaka S+R on digital preservation.