In today's digital era, where businesses heavily rely on digital assets to shape their brand identity and engage with their audience, the importance of digital preservation cannot be overstated. Digital preservation ensures that these assets remain accessible and usable over time, safeguarding brand integrity, ensuring compliance with legal requirements, and future-proofing businesses against technological advancements. In this article, we'll delve into the significance of digital preservation within a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, why your organization should care about it, and how best to explore implementing preservation into your DAM.
Understanding Digital Preservation:
Digital preservation encompasses the processes and strategies aimed at ensuring the long-term viability and accessibility of digital assets. It involves managing, organizing, and storing digital assets in a manner that protects them from loss, corruption, or obsolescence. While traditionally associated with museums and cultural institutions, digital preservation is equally pertinent for businesses, brands, and organizations storing digital assets.
Why Digital Preservation Matters:
Digital preservation plays a vital role in business operations for several reasons:
- Protecting Brand Identity: Digital assets, such as logos and images, are integral to a company's brand identity. Preserving these assets ensures consistency and accessibility, thereby safeguarding brand integrity.
- Compliance and Legal Requirements: Many industries, including finance, healthcare, and legal sectors, have regulations mandating data retention and preservation. Failure to comply with these requirements can lead to penalties and legal consequences. For instance, regulations like SEC Rule 17a-4(f) in the financial sector and HIPAA in healthcare mandate strict data retention policies, often requiring Write Once Read Many (WORM) storage compliance to prevent tampering or deletion of records.
- Future-Proofing: As technology evolves, businesses must ensure that their digital assets remain usable and accessible. Digital preservation strategies help future-proof assets against technological obsolescence.
- Cost Savings: Preserving digital assets mitigates the need for recreating or reacquiring lost or damaged assets, resulting in significant time and cost savings. If files become corrupt, not only does that mean losing files, but it also entails spending time trying to restore from backups, if available. Without backups, the costs of losing valuable assets and the expenses associated with replicating them can be substantial.
Key Features for Digital Preservation in DAM:
- Fixity: DAMs can generate a fixity report on ingestion and use this to compare future checksum scans of assets to ensure assets don’t become corrupt or suffer from pixel rot.
- File Format Obsolescence: Having a DAM can help target and replace old file formats that are no longer supported or nearly unsupported.
- Virus Checks: DAMs can streamline the process of ensuring you don’t add corrupted or infected files to your digital collection. Automatically scan new assets upon upload to ensure they are free from viruses to protect the integrity of your collection.
In addition to these benefits, a DAM solution that is OAIS-compliant demonstrates a commitment to digital preservation best practices. The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model provides a framework for ensuring the long-term preservation and accessibility of digital assets. By adhering to OAIS standards, DAM platforms can effectively manage and preserve digital assets in accordance with recognized industry standards.
Implementing Digital Preservation in DAM:
To effectively implement digital preservation in a DAM platform, businesses should follow these best practices:
- Create a Preservation Policy: Establish guidelines for preserving digital assets, including backup frequency, retention periods, and storage protocols.
- Regular Backup: Regularly back up assets to prevent loss in case of system failure or disaster.
- Metadata and Tagging: Consistently apply metadata and tagging to assets for efficient organization and retrieval.
- Version Control: Utilize version control features to manage asset revisions effectively.
- Employee Training: Educate employees on digital preservation practices to ensure compliance and adherence to preservation policies.
Responsibility and Takeaways:
While responsibility for digital preservation often lies with digital asset managers, it's essential for all employees to understand its significance and adhere to preservation policies. By effectively implementing digital preservation strategies in DAM platforms, businesses can ensure the longevity and accessibility of their digital assets, thereby maintaining their competitive edge in the digital landscape. To learn how Orange Logic can help with your preservation needs, schedule a call.
