<b>Why Preserve? Opportunities for Digital Preservation in Africa’s GLAM Sector</b> (WDPD 2025)

This presentation, delivered for World Digital Preservation Day (WDPD) 2025 at the National Library of South Africa (Pretoria), synthesises a national evidence base on digital preservation readiness across universities, archives, and the wider GLAM sector. The analysis distinguishes digitisation for discovery from digital preservation for endurance, highlighting the gap between visible access systems and under-engineered preservation layers.

Drawing on structured, verifiable desk research (policy documents, system footprints, and public artefacts), the slide deck presents:

1. Sector snapshots (Universities, Archives, GLAM);
2. Cross-cutting risks (authenticity, integrity, born-digital continuity); and
3. A pragmatic path toward a shared, OAIS-aligned national preservation architecture (policy templates, storage & integrity controls, PREMIS-based evidence, and sustainable funding).

The core takeaway is deliberately simple: discovery flourishes, but endurance must be engineered. The aim is to support collaborative, standards-based action—practical enough for immediate wins, mature enough to scale nationally.

Methods / Approach:

• Structured desk research across three domains (Universities; National/Provincial Archives; GLAM).
• For each institution: Policy presence (Digital Preservation / Digitisation / RDM / IP / POPIA / PAIA / Records), year/version, public URL, system signals (e.g., AtoM, MuseumPlus, Axiell, CONTENTdm, Koha/DAISY), and interpretive notes.
• Inclusion criteria: Publicly accessible, citable sources; negative findings recorded where policies/systems were not publicly evidenced.

Data availability / Related items:

• Dataset A: Universities (26): policy and system evidence table (XLSX)
• Dataset B: Archives (National + 9 Provinces): legislation, policy posture, AtoM evidence (XLSX)
• Dataset C: GLAM (18 institutions): governance, system footprints, preservation posture (XLSX)

Note: These datasets are being finalised and will be added here at a future stage.

Ethical & legal notes:

• Analysis uses publicly available documents and institutional web pages only.
• No personal data is processed beyond the named public officials/roles, where it is already public.
• All third-party logos/imagery remain the property of their respective rights holders.

Acknowledgements:

Presented at World Digital Preservation Day (WDPD) 2025, hosted by the National Library of South Africa. With thanks to colleagues and collaborators across South Africa’s GLAM community for their ongoing stewardship and dialogue.