Hi Mike--

As far predicting the cost of digital archives, you might check out the 
LIFE project [1], which has been through three cycles now. The first 
couple focused on analysis of costing structures for various use cases 
(including electronic journal content), and the third one focused on 
creating a predictive model for the same. Check out the 'Documentation' 
section for each.

For further reading, I always point people to the PADI resource pages 
[2], which are just a fantastic source for pulling together major pieces 
of work on most digital preservation topics. Looks like costing is no 
exception[3].

Let me know if you run into more specific questions.

Best,

Steve



[1]: http://www.life.ac.uk/
[2]: http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/thesaurus.html
[3]: http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/5.html




On 11-10-24 5:36 AM, Mike Taylor wrote:
> Does anyone out there know what recent studies predict for the
> lifetime of digitally archived and preserved documents?
>
> For example, there is a long and mostly pretty successful tradition of
> preserving journal articles as paper in bound volumes, and experiment
> shows that this approach is usually good for hundreds of years.  It
> *seems* obvious to me that the physical resilience of paper is
> outweighed by the ability to make infinite perfect copies of digital
> documents, but obviously we haven't had hundreds of years of
> experience in which empirically test that idea.
>
> Are there any published studies that predict and compare the long-term
> preservation ability and cost efficiency of physical and digital
> archives?  I would like to either back up or refute my intuition!
>
> Thanks,
>          -- Mike.
>

-- 



Stephen Marks
Digital Preservation Librarian
Scholars Portal
Ontario Council of University Libraries

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