O’Reilly Talks about Digital Preservation

Former SALT speaker Tim O’Reilly recently shared the video of a talk he gave on digital preservation at the Library of Congress in 02011.

Discussing some of his own “personal failures” to archive O’Reilly Media’s early projects, O’Reilly here emphasizes the importance of preserving digital information and resources in a world where printed matter may eventually become obsolete. We risk slipping into a digital dark age if we continue to treat digital archiving as an “afterthought.” Citing the examples of Wikipedia and Github, O’Reilly therefore urges us to recognize the long-term relevance of what we create on the web. He suggests we change the way we engage with online systems, and build preservation into the very core of our online activity.