Long-Duration Information Preservation Program

Program overview

The Long-Duration Information Preservation Program (LDIPP) addresses a problem that most institutions defer: how to ensure that information recorded today can still be read, verified and understood a century from now. It is led by the Continuity Infrastructure Administration with the Office of Long-Term Systems Research, which contributes work on selection, documentation and the institutional conditions under which archives survive.

Digital storage is reliable over years and fragile over decades. Media degrade, formats fall out of use, the equipment needed to read them is discontinued, and silent corruption accumulates unless copies are checked and refreshed. Each of these failures is manageable by an organization that operates continuously; the Program is concerned with what happens when continuity of operation cannot be assumed. Its central design requirement is that a preserved collection should remain recoverable even after an extended period in which no one maintains it.

The Program’s first major publication, DSC-TR-2026-005, assessed the longevity of tape, optical, silica glass and microfilm media for century-scale retention. Its findings shaped the layered design of the Department’s archives: active copies on LTO tape at Facility Bravo, whose Archive Level 1 was commissioned in June 2026 at 15 °C and 35 percent relative humidity; and media chosen for unpowered survivability at Facility Charlie, where a pilot vault has operated since July 2026.

LDIPP also provides the preservation layer for neural research data managed under the Neural Data Preservation Framework, applying its retention tiers and fixity procedures to datasets that may need to be kept for longer than any current storage technology has existed.

Research objectives

1. Establish media and format strategies that keep records recoverable for at least 100 years, including through periods without power or active maintenance.
2. Operate redundant preservation copies across geographically separated sites with independent failure modes.
3. Verify the integrity of every preserved object on a defined schedule and record the result.
4. Develop documentation that allows a future reader without access to present-day institutional knowledge to locate, decode and interpret a collection.
5. Evaluate silica glass optical storage in the Charlie pilot vault before committing it to the main vault design.
6. Provide preservation services for NDPF-governed neural data in coordination with DNC.

Current research areas

Select a research area to read a summary of current work.