Multivalent evaluation of digital preservation success

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 the 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.