An act of conserving and maintaining both the safety and integrity of data. Preservation is done through formal activities that are governed by policies, regulations and strategies directed towards protecting and prolonging the existence and authenticity of data and its metadata. The main goal of data preservation is to protect data from being lost or destroyed and to contribute to the reuse and progression of the data. Long-term preservation of datasets is a challenge owing to uncertainty about the future of file formats, computer architectures, storage media and network connectivity. Projects that put particular stress on data preservation take a variety of approaches to solving these problems.

Sources: ODH and http://ifdo.org/preservation/