As the penetration of information technology into everyday life is accelerated day by day, virtually all kinds of human representation of knowledge and arts are produced and distributed in the digital form. It is problematic, however, because digital objects are so volatile that it is not easy to keep them in fixed form. The fatal fragility makes it extremely tricky to preserve the digital heritage of our time for the next generation.
The present paper aims to introduce current endeavors made at the international and the national levels and to provide withsuggestions for Korean national strategy of digital preservation. It starts with reviewing the global trends of digital archiving and long-term preservation, focusing on standardization, preservation strategies and current experiments and projects being conducted for preserving various digital objects. It then sketches national strategies of several leading countries. Based on the sketch, twofold suggestions for Korean national strategy are proposed: establishing a central coordinating agency and accommodating the digital preservation issue in the legislative and regulatory framework for the information society.
The paper concludes with the necessity of cooperation among heritage organizations, including libraries, archives, museums. They should cooperate with each other because they have traditionally been trusted with the custodianship of collective memory of humankind and the digital heritage cannot be passed onto the next generation without their endeavor. They should also work together because any single institution, or any single nation could cover what it takes to complete the task of long-term preservation of our digital heritage.