The report is a practical guide to assessing the risks associated with the migration of various formats and to making sound preservation decisions on the basis of that assessment. Although computers have made access to information easier than ever, obsolescent hardware and software systems can render digital data unreadable after just a few years.
Research is under way to develop viable approaches to digital archiving.
Both approaches require considerable further development to become broadly practical. Until an optimal solution is found, institutions realize that they must act to move their digital information forward. Risk Management of Digital Information will help digital archives managers identify the potential risks in migrating files and how to avoid them. The authors organize the migration process into a sequence of steps and offer assessment tools to manage every step. The process is presented in a workbook, each section of which opens with an issue summary.