Edward Maluwa

  Data curation and digital preservation have become essential activities for libraries, archives, research institutions and other organizations responsible for managing digital information. Data curation involves the active management of digital data throughout its lifecycle to ensure that it remains accessible, usable, authentic and reusable over time. Digital preservation, on the other hand, focuses on maintaining long-term access to digital resources despite technological changes and potential risks such as hardware failure, software obsolescence and data degradation (Lee and Tibbo, 2011). While these activities are critical for safeguarding valuable digital assets, their successful implementation is often hindered by challenges related to budgets, costs, staffing and skills. These issues often hinder the successful implementation and sustainability of preservation initiatives. One of the most significant issues affecting data curation and preservation initiatives is inadequa...

  Data Curation: Organisational issues (Summary) Data curation and preservation involve the management, maintenance and long-term protection of digital resources to ensure their continued accessibility, authenticity and usability. Cox et al. (2023) observed that while technological challenges are often highlighted, organisational issues are equally critical as they influence the effectiveness and sustainability of preservation programs. Cox et al. (2023) identified lack of clear policies and strategic frameworks for digital preservation as a major organisational challenge that affects data curation and preservation. Many institutions collect and manage digital information without comprehensive guidelines that define preservation objectives, responsibilities, retention schedules and access requirements. Without formal policies, preservation activities may be inconsistent and dependent on individual efforts rather than institutional commitment (Corrado and Sandy, 2017). Digital...

  Data Curation and Preservation Issues (Threats to Digital Materials) Data curation and preservation are essential activities that ensure digital materials remain accessible, usable, authentic, and understandable over time (Abbott, 2008). Digital materials include electronic records, research datasets, digital photographs, videos, audio files, e-books, websites and institutional documents. Digital information faces numerous threats that can compromise its long-term preservation despite the numerous advantages. Organisations, libraries, archives and research institutions need to understand these threats as it is crucial in seeking to safeguard valuable digital resources (Harvey, 2012). Technological obsolescence is one major threat to digital materials as technology changes rapidly hence hardware, software and file formats can become outdated within a few years (Lavoie, 2014). For example, digital files stored on floppy disks or created using obsolete software may become inacces...