"The Price of Keeping Knowledge" Workshop: ICPSR Position Paper

The challenge of long-term funding for institutions providing public goods is not unique to digital preservation. Communities have a variety of ways of supporting memory institutions, like libraries, over the very long term. Long-term access to data requires durable institutions that plan on a scale of decades and even generations. Such planning is difficult when grant cycles are of limited duration, and proposed projects are rated for innovation and transformation but not for reliability or permanence. Fee-for-services can provide additional financial stability, although it can be difficult to predict accurate and comprehensive costs based on future needs and expectations.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a center in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, has a 50-year record of archiving and disseminating social science data. ICPSR is committed to ensuring long-term access to the more than 500,000 files that comprise our 8,000-plus research collections. As the demands of the scientific community increase, ICPSR is exploring new ways to sustain access to its collection for future researchers.