Deciding to do nothing about preservation could be a disaster, says Paul Stokes, senior co-design manager at Jisc.

Introducing digital preservation to an organisation is not a task for the fainthearted. There’s data to be found, people to convince, policies to be written… and that’s before a single system has been procured or a single byte preserved. World Preservation Day, 5 November, is the ideal time to make a start.Delaying is not really an option because of the alarming hike in the amount of data that is being created. According to the World Economic Forum, an astonishing 90% of the world’s  data  has been generated in the last two years alone. It says that 2.5 quintillion bytes of  data  are  produced  by humans every day and 463 exabytes of  data  will be generated each day by humans by 2025, that’s the equivalent of 212.765.957 DVDs per day![#pullquote#]2.5 quintillion bytes of  data  are  produced  by humans every day[#endpullquote#]Sometimes a backup is not enoughFailure to preserve data properly can pose a significant reputational risk and could result in the loss of unique and irretrievable knowledge, as the server crash in 2016 at the Memorial University in Canadahttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/mun-digital-archives-wiped-out-1.4787960 shows.In July 2016, staff at the Queen Elizabeth II library at Memorial University were undertaking routine maintenance that required power to the building to be cut and switched to a backup system, which failed. The back-up to the back-up power (big batteries) came online and lasted about 40 minutes, which wasn’t long enough. More than 70 terabytes of data was lost. Luckily, physical documents and objects still existed, but it all had to be digitised again.Rescuing the bronze age in YorkFailing to adapt to rapid change in systems and technology is another risk to consider when preserving data – something that York University understands only too wellhttps://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2000/archives-rescued/.It’s often put about (in archaeological circles at least) that archaeologists destroy their primary evidence as they discover and catalogue it. There’s no going back for a second bite of the cherry. After archaeologists had finished work on almost 180 sites in north east London, all that remained were the archives stored in the vaults of local museums. Those archives included data from a large number of unpublished excavations, with very impressive Bronze Age material discovered on the banks of the Thames.But when the project finished, the archaeologists discovered to their horror that their irreplaceable data was running on obsolete technology using outmoded software and file formats. Some of their magnetic media was also corrupted. Luckily, a team of specialists managed to retrieve most of it.Getting started with preservation can be a daunting thing but to ensure access to digital materials is maintained in the long run, it’s important to ensure all systems are equipped to keep up with technology and organisational change.[#pullquote#]Getting started with preservation can be a daunting thing but […] it’s important to ensure all systems are equipped to keep up with technology and organisational change[#endpullquote#]One means of automatically keeping systems aligned and ‘speaking to each other’ is to use clever tools, such as Jisc’sPreservation. This tool automatically reformats files, so they are readable with new and yet-to-be-invented software. Once in the Preservation system, the files are automatically ‘recognised’ and processed according to pre-set rules into an appropriate format that is as future-proof as possible.Nothing human is alienHowever, no matter how cleverly technology is deployed, there’s no absolute defence against human error, which remains one of the major risks to digital content. After hardware failure, the most common cause of data loss is user mistakes (at least it was in 20033, 20094 and 2015https://www.techradar.com/how-to/world-of-tech/management/how-to-recover-lost-business-data-1304303/2 ). It is not uncommon that users will unintentionally move files or delete content inadvertently. Strict user policies that separate “archives directories” from “working directories” where users can still edit and actively work with content, can protect against this risk.So, what to do now?Preservation is about identifying and managing risk. There are a number of useful questions to answer to help with that: has a data asset survey been completed? Who is generating data and who uses it, where it’s stored, what it’s worth? Finally, put policies in place to manage the preservation process.Watch a recording of our online event – what is digital preservation and should you be worried?