Getting to the Bottom Line: 20 Digital Preservation Cost Questions

Abstract

Getting to the Bottom Line: 20 Cost Questions for Digital Preservation is a cost-gathering resource created by the Outreach Committee of the MetaArchive Cooperative in Spring 2015. Launched during an Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) webinar (https://vimeo.com/121926212) on March 11, 2015, this resource has been shared broadly with libraries, archives, and other institutions that have an interest in procuring digital preservation services. The easy-to-use resource is designed to equip institutions with questions that they can use to identify the full range of costs that might be associated with any particular digital preservation service--proprietary, community-sourced, or otherwise. For a variety of reasons, services of all types do not always make their costs as transparent as institutions might prefer. Using the Getting to the Bottom Line question-set will help ensure that institutions do not leave any stones unturned when evaluating their options and that they gather the information that they need to make informed choices that lead to sustainable solutions. Institutions are encouraged to make free use of the questions, adapt them as needed, and provide feedback on their usefulness. Going forward, the resource will serve as a foundation for building additional and more sophisticated cost transparency resources targeted toward the digital preservation community.