The purpose of this paper is to reflect on progress over the last ten years in the field of digital preservation for cultural heritage institutions.
This is an opinion piece, based on the experience of a practitioner in digital preservation.
Digital preservation has become a mainstream activity. There are differences in the American and European approaches to supporting and organizing preservation initiatives. US institutions would benefit from wider outreach and education efforts.
The implications are left to the reader, but may suggest that more reflection on the goals and strategies of the preservation community is in order.
This paper identifies a need to develop and support distributed centers of excellence to promote digital preservation, provide expertise to other institutions, and to organize sharing and training opportunities for their constituencies.
