What are some potential redundancy strategies for the risk that organizational challenges pose to digital data?

There are a number of risks to digital data that preservationists have a good handle on:

• environmental factors can be addressed by replication in different data centers
• natural disasters can be mitigated by replication in different geographic areas

But organizational challenges still pose a distinct challenge to long-term preservation of digital content. What are some potential redundancy strategies for the challenges to preservation of data posed by organizational issues like budget cuts, changing mission or mandate, or personnel turnover?

MGallinger

• digital-preservation

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Answer by dsalo

For the employee-expertise scenario:

• Documentation of procedures, software, etc.
• Cross-training of employees
• Reliance (as much as possible) on automation, such that the system can limp along until expertise is re-found
• Not being a complete jerk to one's valued employees

For the business-failure scenario:

• Contingency planning, such that in case of failure another entity would assume responsibility for the collection
• Avoiding overreliance on a single funding source, particularly overreliance on grants

Either TRAC or DRAMBORA will help managers think through these issues.

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