Not all data should be preserved, but efforts to save important information are being stymied by many factors: complacency, fear that the problem of long-term digital access and preservation is too big to take on, inadequate funding, confusion, and lack of alignment among stakeholders, says. A better model for preserving data is needed, and it requires worldwide collaboration, says the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, which consists of experts from universities, major libraries and one tech company ().

"The long-term accessibility and use of valuable digital materials requires digital preservation activities that are economically sustainable -- in other words, provisioned with sufficient funding and other resources on an ongoing basis to achieve their long-term goals," task force co-chairman Brian Lavoie of the Online Computer Library Center said in a press release.

Although the task force says an industrywide solution is needed, there obviously are many steps individual IT shops can take to implement a better data preservation plan. The task force's second co-chair, Fran Berman, director of the at the University of California, offered a list of in a recent article. 

Here is a look at Berman's advice:

1. Make a detailed plan for the stewardship and preservation of your data, from its inception to the end of its lifetime.