From Burden to Benefit: Rethinking Digital Preservation at Universities

In this paper, we aim to use the approach to the digital preservation of research data at VU Amsterdam as a case study to show the importance and benefits of organising digital preservation from a user-centric perspective. We show that awareness raising is not enough to change the existing practices, as many reasons stop individuals from reaching out to central support services despite the awareness of their existence. Instead, we strive to put the researcher at the heart of our digital preservation support services by truly listening to their needs and creating an ecosystem that supports individuals on every step of their journey and makes digital preservation a natural part of their workflow.