Frank: Sustainable funding is the greatest challenge in digital preservation

When it comes to protecting the world’s digital records, University of Michigan School of Information assistant professor Rebecca Frank says the biggest threat isn’t technical failure. It’s financial neglect. 

In a recent interview with the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School, Frank argues that the preservation of digital information depends less on new technology and more on long-term funding, advocacy and community empowerment. 

“When I look at risk assessment and risk mitigation, a lack of stable long-term funding almost always surfaces as the most significant threat to digital information,” she says. “It’s not that there’s some technical barrier that we haven’t overcome or there’s not a willingness on the part of digital preservation professionals to do the work, it’s that they can’t get anybody to care enough to create a stable funding stream, right?

Frank, an expert in risk and resilience in digital preservation, emphasized that institutions often overlook everyday risks such as staffing shortages and grant expirations. 

“Losing your funding is also a disaster,” she notes. “If data is lost, it doesn’t matter how it came to that point.” 

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Read Frank’s interview at the Library Innovation Lab. 

Learn more about Rebecca Frank’s research on digital preservation, risk and sustainability.