Last week an important and welcome report on best practices in software preservation was released. This work has been in progress for some time, and is an important step in defining and clarifying good community practice in this often confusing area, particularly with regard to intellectual property. Similar processes have been used with considerable success to help other communities, such as documentary film makers, in recent years.

see

http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/2018.09.24_softwarepreservationcode.pdf

for the report, and there's some valuable context at

Software Preservation Best Practices in Fair Use to Help Safeguard Cultural Record, Advance Research — Association of Research Libraries

The new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Software Preservation provides clear guidance on the legality of archiving legacy software to ensure continued access to digital files of all kinds and to illuminate the history of technology...

There was also a very good session last week at iPres 2018 in Boston introducing the report, and I expect there will be other presentations during the fall.

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI