Archivists have traditionally played a crucial custodial role in protecting and providing access to long-term, historical collections on paper and film, but as the volume and diversity of digital content increases exponentially over the coming decades, digital preservation has become a community effort.
Leadership at All Levels
In the archives field, some institutions lead the way in digital preservation, while others seek their guidance. Only the most well-funded institutions (primarily large universities) can afford a robust level of research and development, and they engage in collaborative efforts with other institutions to develop models and platforms with grant funding. Institutions that take a leadership role gain credibility, which pays off in terms of funding. However, even the smallest or most obscure archival repository can offer aid to the archival field regarding digital preservation techniques. As a community, we can share what best works for us locally, in hopes that others can replicate it in their home institutions.
Institution-lead Collaboration
Institutions in the United States lead projects in digital curation and preservation, because no dedicated support for these activities exists nationally, as in other countries. Well-recognized institutional collaborations include Big Ten Academic Alliance, Digital POWRR (Preserving Objects with Restricted Resources), and the Orbis Cascade Alliance.
While institutions become known for their collaborations, standards development, and outreach, even more important to success is advocacy performed within institutions. As funding opportunities evolve, engaging employees, target audiences, administrators, and donors becomes a challenge. Communication, staff involvement, and access to resources are paramount to maintaining morale in our internal community and shifting environment. Institutional sustainability is key to the sustainability of digital content.
Harnessing Group Wisdom
Archivists should make use of existing networks to share information, establish collaborations, and learn from others. Begin by learning from listservs, publications, and conferences. Then start developing your policies and procedures, testing out the best methods, and share what you learn. By sharing information, archivists can highlight how they provide access to digital materials, discuss the importance of access, and provide guidance on what solutions work in different contexts and communities. What works for one institution may not work for another, but can be adjusted to be the most meaningful to the user communities we serve.
Work with colleagues to develop best practices, which eventually turn into standards. Look to the Society of American Archivists, the Digital Library Federation, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, the Best Practices Exchange, and the Digital Curation Centre community for leadership and innovation in this area.
Working Together as a Community
Digital preservation challenges are born of our changing culture and our responses to those challenges. Formats, software, and media evolve, and the extent to which we have been managing content across those many changes determines just how much work we still need to do. There are steps we can take together to set up safety nets that will help us move forward. For example, we can collaborate with other institutions to store copies of one another’s digital content. We can determine the best way to protect the originals while working out the best way to transform or migrate copies.
Community Learning
We can learn from one another’s explorations, research, and testing to avoid making mistakes. By working together, we improve our chances of success and the scope of valuable digital content that will survive in the future. This sense of experimentation is critical to applying the right digital preservation techniques and policies in archival repositories of all sizes. By improving preservation efforts and sharing tactics, archivists can elevate the value of their digital content, raise their institutional profiles, and ensure that archives deliver new and engaging ways in which content can be distributed, consumed, and enjoyed.
The blog was originally published on Lucidea's blog.
Archives often operate in environments defined by scarcity of space, staff, time, and funding. In these conditions, every decision carries weight. Without a plan, archives risk spreading their resources too thin, responding only to immediate crises, and missing opportunities for growth and impact. Strategic planning serves as a lifeline, providing archivists with a structured approach to prioritize, allocate resources, and communicate the value of their work to stakeholders.
Archivists have long recognized patterns of limited funding that shape their institutions, yet they have consistently responded with creativity, commitment, and innovation. Even when resources are scarce, archives continue to find ways to build and maintain essential infrastructure and strengthen public engagement. Each challenge underscores the importance of archivists’ labor and provides an opportunity to advocate for the central role archives play in their communities.
Archives safeguard treasures, including objects like the founding documents of a nation and photographs of defining cultural moments. These holdings inspire a sense of connection to the past, and at the heart of that work are archivists whose expertise brings these collections to life.
No archives is an island. Especially in resource-constrained environments, collaboration through shared infrastructure provides a lifeline. Consortia models turn scarcity into opportunity by spreading costs and expertise across multiple archives. By pooling resources, institutions achieve more than they could alone.
Well-resourced institutions have developed archival best practices, including comprehensive finding aids, climate-controlled storage, and digital preservation systems. For small or resource-constrained archives, these standards can feel out of reach. The danger is that the profession’s ideals may discourage institutions from taking action, leaving records vulnerable. The solution lies in paring down practices and procedures without abandoning principles.
Many archives exist within environments of chronic underfunding. Community archives, small historical societies, or lone arrangers may work with little more than donated materials, a handful of volunteers, and minimal budgets.
However, these institutions remain vital, safeguarding the histories of communities often absent from mainstream narratives. Scarcity shapes their reality, yet it can still allow meaningful work.
Humanity produces more digital content than at any other point in history. Every click, message, and post contributes to an expanding universe of data that represents the cultural memory of our time. At the center of this transformation stand archivists, the professionals uniquely trained to ensure that memories survive in the future. However, even as the scale of the challenge grows, their voices risk being sidelined in public conversations about digital preservation.
In recent years, the concept of “slow librarianship” has emerged as a thoughtful response to the accelerating pace and pressures placed upon library professionals. Drawing inspiration from the broader slow movement, it emphasizes care, reflection, ethics, and people-centered work over speed and efficiency.
The archival profession is characterized by dedication to public memory, cultural preservation, and service. However, beneath this noble mission lies a troubling reality: the increasing reliance on gig and contract labor.
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In recent decades, Indigenous communities and archivists have challenged the dominant frameworks that have long shaped archival practice. Traditionally, Western archival models have prioritized state authority, institutional control, and the presumption of neutrality. These models often fail to reflect Indigenous worldviews, community needs, or the rights of Indigenous peoples over their records and heritage.
As archival practice shifts to meet the challenges of the digital age, the ethical use of born-digital materials has become one of the most pressing concerns for archivists. These materials—emails, websites, text messages, digital photographs, spreadsheets, social media posts, and more—are created and stored digitally from their inception.
The fundamental principles of archival preservation focus on the agents of deterioration, preventive conservation, and essential preservation strategies applied in archival settings.
The monetary appraisal of archives and manuscripts is a critical yet underexplored intersection of library science and financial valuation. This article addresses the persistent knowledge gap between archival assessment and fiscal valuation and provides an overview of the monetary appraisal process in the United States. It focuses on concluding the fair market value (FMV) of noncash charitable contributions, a process governed by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). By documenting practices and terminology, the article serves as a resource for archivists navigating the complexities of donor relations and institutional stewardship. It advocates for increased fiscal literacy within the archival profession, suggesting that an integrated understanding of market dynamics and stewardship costs is essential for the care and financial substantiation of collections.
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Description is a cornerstone of archival practice, providing the means for users and archivists to understand, access, and interpret materials.
Mixed-media archives, which contain physical and digital records, present unique challenges for archival arrangement. These collections require archivists to develop strategies that address the different needs of physical and digital materials while maintaining the collection’s coherence and accessibility.
Digital records have introduced new challenges to traditional archival arrangement practices. While the principles of original order and provenance remain relevant, the nature of digital materials requires archivists to adapt these principles to new formats and technologies.
Archival arrangement organizes and structures archival materials to ensure efficient management, access, and preservation.
Redaction in archival work—obscuring or removing sensitive information from records—has become a central concern in contemporary archival ethics. As archives increasingly acquire born-digital records and digitize historical collections for online access, archivists must grapple with data privacy, access, transparency, and potential harm.
Archives have traditionally focused on preserving historical records, ensuring access, and maintaining the integrity of collections. However, in the digital age, the moral responsibilities of archivists have grown more complex.
Archives have long been viewed as bastions of memory, preservation, and historical accountability. However, archivists must confront ethical questions in an era of digital surveillance, data harvesting, and global information flows.
As archival institutions evolve from custodians of information to facilitators of memory and meaning-making, emotional engagement has become a vital, though often overlooked, dimension of archival design.
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Design thinking has become a widely adopted approach in fields ranging from technology to education, prized for emphasizing empathy, experimentation, and iterative problem-solving. For archives, traditionally shaped around internal workflows and professional conventions, design thinking presents an opportunity to reimagine outreach and engagement strategies from users’ perspectives.
With shrinking resources and increasing demands, archivists cannot afford to view budgeting as an afterthought. A carefully developed budget is a strategic tool that connects an archives’ mission to its daily operations. It demonstrates accountability, supports advocacy efforts, and provides a framework for decision-making.