Costs and benefits of a shared digital long-term preservation system

Abstract

This paper is a report on the cost-benefit analysis of digital long-term preservation that was conducted as a part of the National Digital Library Project in 2010.

The analysis was based on the assumption that a large number, perhaps as many as 200, of archives, libraries, and museums will share a preservation system. The term ”system” shall be understood as encompassing not only information technology, but also people, organizational structures, policies and funding mechanisms.

The cost analysis shows that a preservation system will incur, over 12 first years, cumulative costs of 42 million euros. If a dark archive will be built, the costs will increase by 3.4 million euros. Human resources and investments on information technology are the major cost factors. After the initial stages, the analysis predicts annual costs of circa 4 million euros.