Organizational Strategies for Cultural Heritage Preservation

Cultural Heritage content is increasingly being both created digitally and digitized. Preserving this content has been a much discussed and debated question in the Digital Libraries and Digital Humanities communities. Many concerns have been raised around the organizational challenges. Centralized preservation is often praised for unified access and consistency, but at the same are criticized for their reliance on the continued interest of a smaller number of maintainers. Alternatively, decentralized preservation leads to better longevity but often at a cost of consistency or ease of access. Beyond this question, there are many other organizational issues. Such as the role of states and commercial entities in preservation; and, dealing with concerns about ownership, privacy and acceptable use of materials. This panel will discuss these issues with the goal of finding a balance between these often conflicting approaches.