The theme of digital preservation remains at the core of many concerns with electronic publishing and with efforts to create and extend digital creativity. This is particularly pressing in the arts and humanities where acceptance of digital publishing has not been as thorough and rapid as it has been in the physical and medical sciences. Proponents of digital technology initiatives must therefore be prepared to answer detailed questions on how and why and what should be preserved.

Drawing on the experiences of the archaeology community in the UK, this presentation will look at the whys and wherefores of digital preservation. Three related issues will be discussed: why we should preserve; what we should preserve and how we should preserve it. In the first case, a basic need to preserve will be articulated in response to the overarching pressures of funding agencies, as well as within the discourses of academic work. In the second case, it will become clear that preservation requires selectivity: that we need to work out the levels of preservation for different instances of electronic creativity. In the third case, it will be argued that, while software and hardware are normally cited as the main foundation of digital preservation, in fact it is effective documentation that is the key.