Working group for the preservation of digital memories

Preservation traditionally consists in ensuring the stability of physical supports over time, in order to give access to the information they transmit. Today, the increasing amount of information available in electronic format has shifted attention to other risk factors, not only linked to the fragility of supports, but also to the risk of a rapid obsolescence of operating systems and formats. The problem of obsolescence applies to all electronic documents, both the local (Cd-Rom, DVD) and the remote access ones, the born digital and those derived from the digitisation of paper documents.

The European Council Resolution of June 25, 2002 – Preserving tomorrow memory - preserving digital content for future generations (2002/C  162/02) and the preparation of the Florence International Conference (October 16 and 17, 2003) under the coordination of the Italian presidency of the European Union, caused the establishment of a highly qualified Working group on the preservation of digital memory which adopted  at European level the goal of surveying the state of the art in the field of digital preservation and developing an action plan to disseminate and follow up the principles set forth in the resolution.
 
The Working Group built upon the ERPANET and MINERVA projects, under the guidance of the European Commission and the Italian presidency.

The Council Resolution encouraged the European Commission and member states to take stock of the situation and to promote a fact-finding study on the emergencies, risks and problems that delay the preservation of digital cultural heritage, and to foster and carry out the related activities and a suitable action plan.

The Working Group aimed to:
  • take stock of ongoing initiatives and encourage the exchange of “best practices”
  • define a priority agenda as the starting point for a joint action plan to be carried out by member states
  • set the stage for the creation of a European network for the development of national initiatives.
The group’s first activity consisted of encouraging a cooperative process and identifying priorities and mechanisms that could improve the coordination and efficacy of national or sectorial initiatives on digital preservation in Europe.

This initial phase led to the set up of the Firenze Agenda initiative, presented during the Florence International Conference. Two reports were also presented during the Conference: the first one documents several case studies of emergencies and risks; the other publishes a survey on the state of standards, procedures and guidelines for preservation currently in force in several European and non-European countries.
 
ICCU played a major scientific and organizational role both in setting up the Florence International Conference and in ensuring that the project and the Working Group would enjoy continuity, developmentand coordinating opportunities in Italy.
 
The Firenze Agenda was signed by 27 countries (member states, new member states, Russia, Israel) during the Fifth Conference of National Representatives (GNR) Group held in Parma on November 19, 2003. The NRG recognized the activities of the Working Group on preservation as complementary to the effort of digitizing cultural heritage and offered its support both by participating in the expert group and by offering the network infrastructure.

After the Florence Conference, the Working Group continued to carry out its activities with the goal of encouraging cooperation at European level and boosting awareness and consensus on topics related to digital preservation.

To this end, the General Directorate for Libraries, Cultural Institutes and Copyright, of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, with the scientific contribution of ICCU, has been participating since April 2006 in the DPE - DigitalPreservertionEurope project, funded by the European Commission as part of the Sixth Framework Programme -  Information Society Technologies: access to cultural and scientific resources.
 
Documents of the Working Group for the preservation of digital memory:
External Projects of Reference