Balancing Multiple Stakeholders

Administrative Responsibility

Producers, users, owners, managers, and others have varied—and sometimes conflicting—interests and desires regarding digital objects.

The organization needs a clear and explicit commitment to the establishment of a digital preservation program and an accurate definition of the scope and purpose of the program that balances the interests and priorities of stakeholders. Communication and outreach play an important role in engaging stakeholders’ participation. Stakeholders include content creators or providers designated and future users, and digital preservation managers.

0101 Developing and maintaining the requisite technological infrastructure requires ongoing comprehensive planning. Stakeholders for technological infrastructure may operate within a larger institutional context (e.g., library within a university), be accessible through partners in a consortium, or be part of a parent organization that participates in relevant IT investments and planning.

$$$$ The priorities and fundamental requirements of stakeholders need to be clear to avoid unnecessary and costly redundancies, reduce the time and money to recover from delayed upgrades, and build the most flexible, cost-effective, and responsive infrastructure possible. Stakeholders from a resources perspective include high level administrators, accounting officers, and funding authorities at all levels.

	Exercise
	1. Identify one action you need to take in developing your digital preservation program. 2. Think about who needs to be involved in the action. That’s at least the preliminary list of your stakeholders. Any surprises? The list may grow and change as you work through your digital preservation development.