Long-lived digital data collection

Definition
Long-lived digital data collections are those that meet the following definitions.


 * The term ‘data’ is used in this report to refer to any information that can be stored in digital form, including text, numbers, images, video or movies, audio, software, algorithms, equations, animations, models, simulations, etc. Such data may be generated by various means including observation, computation, or experiment.
 * The term ‘collection’ is used here to refer not only to stored data but also to the infrastructure, organizations, and individuals necessary to preserve access to the data.
 * The digital collections that are the focus for this report are limited to those that can be accessed electronically, via the Internet for example.
 * This report adopts the definition of ‘long-lived’ that is provided in the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) standards, namely a period of time long enough for there to be concern about the impacts of changing technology.

Source
National Science Board, Long-Lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education in the 21st Century 9 (Sept. 2005) (full-text).