Catching Up: Creating a Digital Preservation Policy

Abstract

The University of Maryland Libraries have been managing digital content for about a decade without an official digital preservation policy. The Libraries’ 2013 Strategic Plan called for the development of preservation plans, including "bit-preservation, digital object preservation, and metadata management pertaining to preservation of digital objects and their aggregations." A task force examined policies at other institutions and evaluated needs and strategic directions. The resulting high-level policy and appendix based on the Trusted Repository Audit Checklist (TRAC) will direct all future planning, policies, and implementation. This case study will describe the process and planned steps towards implementation.