Multivalent Evaluation of Digital Preservation Success

Abstract

Purpose – Current assessment practice for digital preservation focuses on instrumental trustworthiness of processes, systems, and outputs, with insufficient regard for teleological success of resulting programmatic outcomes. This paper provides a communicological formalization of digital preservation success. Design/methodology/approach – Digital preservation is repositioned as semiotic sense-making unfolding across archival timespans and accompanying cultural as well as technical distance, and not just as persistent data management. Findings – Inherent intersubjective contingency of any use of preserved information objects necessitates multivalent consideration of various communicative qualities, experiential affordances, and artifactual characteristics for comprehensive determination of preservation success. Research limitations/implications – The proposed conceptual framework provides a foundation for subsequent development of evaluative best practice recommendations. Originality/value – While digital preservation concerns span a socio-technic continuum, evaluative practice should properly emphasize the embodied experience of preservation-enabled communication. Communicological framing of preservation assessment complements the predictive reliability of programmatic trustworthiness with confirmatory assurance of experiential efficacy.