Aligning Digital Preservation Policies with Community Standards

Digital preservation policies are an essential component of an organization's digital preservation program. Yet, recent surveys show that many organizations that manage digital content do not have an explicit policy statement to delineate the mandate, purpose, scope, principles, and objectives of their digital preservation program. The Digital Preservation Management workshop series developed at Cornell University by Anne R. Kenney and Nancy Y. McGovern (Digital Preservation Officer at ICPSR) between 2003 and 2006 produced version 1.0 of a digital preservation policy framework. The resulting framework is a high-level policy document that is structured to be sharable with other organizations. Version 2.0 of the digital preservation policy framework was developed and tested at ICPSR. It builds on the Cornell model by aligning the components of the framework with the attributes of a trusted digital repository and incorporating key components of the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. This paper will discuss the digital preservation policy framework, present examples from the version 1.0 and version 2.0 models, discuss the structure and development of a comprehensive set of digital preservation policies for an organization, consider the connections between recent research and development on policy engines for digital preservation, and propose next steps for community policy development.