Mutually Assured Preservation: Fostering Active Preservation Practice through Fire Drills

Abstract

Sound preservation practice is a series of active engagements with the content one hopes to preserve. In many cases, this has not always been the case. Both institutions and services—while not actively encouraging passive preservation—neglect the key components in the stewardship of our historical record. In other words, there is much more to preservation than simply choosing a storage solution and placing one’s content there. The materials need to be verified, checked, and tested against expectations within the service. This is accepted practice for many. However, very few services provide the necessary assurance to test both its own user expectations as well as the depositors’ themselves. Creating a methodology for both depositor and service to be assured that preservation meets expectations is critical. This is happening in very select ways. This paper discusses one such dialogue and its function.