Digital Sustainability and Digital Repositories

The tasks associated with managing and backing up digital data are well known to IT managers, but the mere presence of the data stream is not the only criterion for preserving and maintaining digital content. Digital sustainability recognises that the continuity of digital information goes well beyond basic storing and managing of data and is integrated into the lifecycle of the information object. It includes technical, social and economic considerations. In 2004 a DEST-funded project, the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) initiated an investigative process to establish a centre of excellence for the management of digital collections. The APSR has an overall focus on the critical issues of the access continuity and the sustainability of digital collections, and this paper draws on the investigation of these issues in the University sector