This paper is a report on the cost-benefit analysis of digital long-term preservation that was conducted as a part of the National Digital Library Project in 2010.

The analysis was based on the assumption that a large number, perhaps as many as 200, of archives, libraries, and museums will share a preservation system. The term ”system” shall be understood as encompassing not only information technology, but also people, organizational structures, policies and funding mechanisms.

The cost analysis shows that a preservation system will incur, over 12 first years, cumulative costs of 42 million euros. If a dark archive will be built, the costs will increase by 3.4 million euros. Human resources and investments on information technology are the major cost factors. After the initial stages, the analysis predicts annual costs of circa 4 million euros.

The analysis compared the scenarios with and without a shared long-term preservation system. The results point to remarkable benefits of a shared system. In the developing and implementation stages, a shared system shows an advantage of 30 million euros, although the competing scenario consisted of only 5 unconnected solutions. During the production, the advantage is estimated at 10 million euros per annum.

The cost-benefit analysis was carried out by CSC — IT Center for Science Ltd. It is a state-owned company that provides IT support and resources for universities, research institutes and companies. The analysis was supported by a number of surveys and sub-projects carried out by the National Digital Library Project. The writer of this paper was closely involved in the process as the representative of the National Library of Finland in the Long-Term Preservation Section of the project organization, and acting as a liaison of the library sector in preparing the cost-benefit analysis and supporting surveys.

Paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association of European Research Libraries) on July 1st, 2011; with the slides used at the presentation.