Background: Digital data and content are continuing be the core foundation of the US knowledge heritage. Examples range from digitize historical maps and manuscripts, high throughput sensor data from unmanned aerial vehicle and advanced medical imaging devices, national records and financial transactions, modeling and simulation of reconstruction of earthquake and building collapse, physical health records and medical history, personal collection of photos and videos from consumer electronics, to social networking from blogs and emails. The ability to effectively manage and protect these national assets is increasingly crucial as digital technology continues to produce vast amounts of valuable and irreplaceable knowledge and information. A recent study by the International Data Corporation has shown that the amount of digital data being produced had risen to 281 exabytes (EB, 10¹⁸) in 2007 and estimates the total amount of digital information will grow at a rate of 58% per year, reaching 1610 EB by 2011! Each EB is equivalent to 50,000 times the entire U.S. Library of Congress. printed collection. Reliable access to the lifecycle of archival knowledge and information impact all facets of mankind: national heritage, homeland security, health and safety, financial institutes, manufacturing, and education, just to name a few.

Challenges: Can data generated from the infancy of digital age be ingestible by software today? Will digital content created today be accessible and renderable throughout its lifecycle?

The answer is YES! Digital preservation is nothing new and content organizations have been diligently safeguarding their irreplaceable knowledge and information using various best approaches with different levels of technological solutions. However, the real challenge is: can digital preservation repositories be effectively accessible and interoperable across varieties of systems and devices throughout the lifecycle of their content?

Actions: The INCITS/DCMP would cordially invite digital preservation experts to submit a questionnaire-based (see Presenter Guidelines for details) paper in this roadmap effort, especially those experts that are involved in:

Organizations (government, public/private institutes, etc.) handling the preservation operations, strategies, and requirements;

Technology developments (academia, commercial companies, R&D labs, etc.) providing preservation best practices and solutions;

Standards bodies (ISO/IEC, consortiums, industry associations, government initiatives, etc.) establishing preservation best practices in the areas of metadata (content description), file format (content container), packaging (content deliverer), management (inside/outside file format), protection (inside/outside file format or packaging), etc

Goals: To establish a US national roadmap on long-term digital preservation standardization by identifying requirements, technologies, and best practices. This roadmap will then feed into the Study Group on Digital Content Management and Protection (SGDCMP) of the Joint Technical Committee (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization and International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) in order for SGDCMP to standardize digital preservation interoperability framework for effectively and reliably access the preserved digital contents between interoperable digital preservation repositories.