The seminar, consisting of two speeches, dealt with a topical problem linked to the spread of digital technologies: the problem of long-term preservation of digital objects. In the first speech, after explaining what is meant by digital object and digital preservation, it has been discussed the reason why the preservation of digital objects over time is a complex problem that affects not only realities that are traditionally delegated to the preservation and transmission of cultural and documentary heritage, but also public authorities, organizations and individuals, who increasingly rely on technology to store information and content.
During the presentation we tried to illustrate some of the key challenges and strategies of digital preservation, which go far beyond the technological sphere to embrace elements of organizational, economic and legal character in a multifaceted framework that stimulated, in recent years, research in a significant way, even in the context of several projects funded by the European Commission.
Among them, the APARSEN project, briefly presented, has made a significant contribution in the process of systematization and defragmentation of research in this field. In the second part of the seminar, it has been presented a concrete example of what it means to make digital preservation in photography and cultural heritage, related to the answer that the Alinari photographic archive (the oldest company in the world in the field of photography and images) has carried out to face some of the challenges described in the first part of the seminar.