Other Archiving Considerations
“Selection” is another important issue in electronic
archiving. The huge quantity of information being
produced digitally, its variable quality, and the resource
constraints on those taking responsibility to preserve
long-term access make selectivity inevitable for archiving.
Traditionally, lack of selection for preservation may
not necessarily mean that the item will be lost, but in the
digital environment non-selection for preservation will
almost certainly mean loss of the item. Although not all
resources can or need to be preserved forever, some will
not need to be preserved at all, others will need to be
preserved only for a defined period of time, and a
relatively small sub-set will need to be preserved
indefinitely