The long-term preservation of digital information is a very complex task confronting various challenges, many of which are still subject to profound research. However, in order to establish a solid framework for the retention of digital documents, in the broadest sense organisational tasks have to be faced as well as those of a purely technical nature. Especially for the creation of an archive striving to preserve digital cultural heritage a very far reaching, yet, sound solution has to be developed. Despite the unique characteristics of any initiative in this field a basic set of overall points can be identified that have to be addressed by all of those, even though substantially differing approaches have evolved to tackle the challenges in their individual occurrence.
Largely dependent on the primary purpose and the orientation of the project is the selection of the material the repository shall be composed of. Hereby, the source of the data is determined at first. On the basis of this, a policy has to be declared, whether the material will be handled very selectively, forming a well sorted collection, or rather gathered in an automatic fashion, resulting in a comprehensive archive.
Installing proper storage facilities is a prerequisite for a well working repository. Thereby, a robust and capacious solution is required, but at the same time it needs to be flexible enough to adapt to advances in technology. Digital data is prone to decay. This is not only due to physical deterioration of the storage media used, but to a much greater extent caused by quick succession of ever superior systems replacing hardware as well as software. Because of this evolution the access to digital documents in the long run is at great danger. Strategies are being developed counteracting this loss of information tearing a hole in our common memory. Those involve converting data in regular cycles to a subsequent data format, that is in use at that time. Another approach sets out to emulate on a future computer then obsolete system environments. However, great effort has still to be put into the research and implementation of such solutions.
Ultimately, access has to be provided to the repository. Allowing a convenient and efficient usability of the collections constitute an ongoing task. Furthermore, economics and legal issues demand consideration.
Much remains to be done to achieve the realisation of such a venture. Yet, steps have to be taken immediately at a high priority taking into account what is at stake.