Preserving the Fruit of Our Labor: Establishing Digital Preservation Policies and Strategies at the University of Houston Libraries

To develop a comprehensive digital preservation program for maintaining long-term access to the Libraries’ digital assets and align our practices with national standards and guidelines, the University of Houston (UH) Libraries formed the Digital Preservation Task Force (DPTF) to assess previous digital preservation practices and make recommendations on future efforts. This paper outlines the methodology used, including the task force’s use of existing models and evaluation criteria, to successfully generate new policies and select Archivematica as our system to process and preserve our digital assets. It concludes with recommended strategies for the implementation of the policies and preservation operations