contributed articles

Doi: 10.1145/1409360.1409376

and boardroom. It is difficult to imagine the information age without unlimited access to and availability of the digital data that is its foundation.

Digital data is also fragile. For most

^{By fRancine BeRman} of us, an underlying assumption is that our data will be accessible whenever

Go_{t Data?} we want it. We also regularly confront the fallacy of this assumption; most of us (or our friends) have had hard drives crash with the loss of valuable a _{Guide to Data} information or seen storage media become obsolete, rendering information unavailable (think floppy disks). Loss, damage, and unavailability of impor- Pr_eservation tant digital business, historical, and official documents regularly make the news, further highlighting our dependence on electronic information.

As a supporting foundation for our

in the efforts in the information age, digital data in the cyberworld is analogous to infrastructure in the physical world, including roads, bridges, water, and

information electricity. And like physical infrastructure, we want our data infrastructure to be stable, predictable, cost-effective, and sustainable. Creating systems with

age these and other critical characteristics in the cyberworld of information technology involves tackling a spectrum of technical, policy, economic, research, education, and social issues. The management, organization, access, and preservation of digital data is arguably a “grand challenge” of the information age.

As a society, we have only begun to address this challenge at a scale concomitant with the deluge of data available to us and its importance in the modern world. This article explores the key trends and issues associated with preserving the digital data that is the natural resource of the information age and what’s needed to keep it manageable, accessible, available, and secure. (For common terms associated with digital data management and preservation, see the sidebar “Digital Data Terms and Definitions.”)

Pho Togra Ph by Thomas h Erbrich

Tools for surviving a data deluge to ensure
your data will be there when you need it.

imagine the modern world without digital data— anything that can be stored in digital form and accessed electronically, including numbers, text, images, video, audio, software, and sensor signals. We listen to digital music on our iPods, watch streaming video on Youtube, record events with digital cameras, and text our colleagues, family, and friends on blackberrys and cell phones. Many of our medical records, financial data, and other personal and professional information are in digital form. Moreover, the internet and its digital products have become our library, shopping mall, classroom,

Data cyberinfrastructure