2. Be aware of data costs including hardware, software, support and time, and include them in your overall IT budget. Determine whether it is more cost-effective to regenerate some of your information rather than preserve it over a long period.

3. Associate metadata with your data. Identify relevant standards for data and metadata content and format, and follow them to make sure the data can be used by others.

4. Make multiple copies of valuable data. Store some copies off-site and in different systems.

5. Plan ahead of time for the transition of digital data to new storage media. Plan budgets for new storage and software technologies, file-format migrations, and time. Move data to new technologies before your storage media become obsolete. ( storage products.)

6. Plan for transitions in data stewardship. If the data eventually will be turned over to a formal repository, institution or other custodial environment, make sure it meets the requirements of the new environment and that the new steward indeed agrees to take it on.