What delineates a Digital Preservation solution?
Karen Colbron Paul Stokes
We at Jisc have recently had the need to specify a base set of requirements for our newly launched Digital Preservation DPS (https://www.jisc.ac.uk/digital-preservation-systems-dynamic-purchasing-system-dps). This core set of requirements was based upon the requirements in the DPC’s procurement toolkit (https://www.dpconline.org/digipres/implement-digipres/core-requirements-for-a-digital-preservation-system). In the course of our discussions, when identifying the requirements, the question of a definition of a digital preservation solution arose. There are many definitions of digital preservation (my favourite short one is “keeping digital stuff usable”), but none for a digital preservation solution (at least not that I’ve found). A facetious response could be “A digital preservation solution enables you to keep digital stuff usable”, but that’s not really very helpful when it comes to procuring a system. 

So, what defines a digital preservation solution? We know it’s a sliding scale (with very blurred lines). Most would probably agree that backup isn’t digital preservation, but what about dark archives? They keep stuff usable in the short term, but without format migration could they really be described as proper digital preservation? Are there other decision points/getaways where on the one side there are systems that are digital preservation solutions and on the other side there are systems that don’t make the grade - sheep on the right, goats on the left.

We're interested in the communities take on this. Many people have strong opinions around definitions. This BoF session would be your chance to surface your opinion and “persuade” others to adopt your point of view.
approaches to preservation from document to data